Honestly, both Aquia models are highly recommended. Pay careful attention to bowl/seat height. My Kohler is too tall, i thought everything was either "standard" or "comfort" height. Well, different companies define that differently. i whipped out the tape measure an i think id be ok with either Aquia, but you should check. All else being equal, I picked the less expensive one. Like most everything else, it's such a big improvement over what I have it doesn't have to be the absolute best to make me happy. Being skirted is a big win, I'll take that and keep the extra $ the one piece costs! (Btw, read on another thread about assigning your sons to clean the bathroom as part of their chores from early on, even if it's just a damp paper towel when young and you really clean after. Apparently they learn quick how to aim better!) This was posted last month, and while it sounds a bit rant-ish (in response to a contested post), I've read similar before and at this point it's enough to sway me. Plus EngineerChic and I had significant issues trying to install Kohler Bancroft suites in our bathrooms in terms of identifying/obtaining parts and confusing diagrams, which we discussed on here if you are interested. Quote from TL forum: "my issue with kohler is parts availability...and, while some people never have problems with their toilets, if you simply look at the trapway design, you'll see that on many of them, the outlet makes a sharp 90-degree turn at the flange and the toto designs make a much more gradual turning there. Depending on the size, shape, and hardness of the waste, things just go down the toto toilet's trapway faster and with fewer problems. Some never have a problem, others have problems on a regular basis with the kohler design. Things do not make 90-degree turns and maintain decent velocity unless done properly. I do not ever remember terry saying kohler had anywhere near that level of defects. I do remember him saying that toto has the lowest of the many brands he sells. The 20% figure i remember was about his breakage factor and the reason why he no longer ships toilets, and limits his delivery area. My last experience with kohler was on a special order. Each time the supplier called kohler, they said it would be shipped tomorrow. This went on for months. In a week or so when it didn't show up, they called again, and got the same story...it will be shipped tomorrow. Then, they sent the wrong thing. Then, once i got it, i was not particularly impressed...parts fit, paint, fit and finish. At that point, i didn't want to send it back and suffer the same, horrible customer service i got again. Since then (this is a shower door), the paint chips, the bearings are crappy and make noises, and even with the several holes, the system did not have a proper position to adjust the height in the track well. The holes in the glass were all rough. If you know anything about glass, you want a nice clean hole. It hasn't spontaneously shattered, but it should never have made it out of the factory, in my view. So much for quality control. I do like some of the designs, but from an installer's viewpoint, some of their stuff is horrible, and almost unreasonable. For example, they have some shower body sprays whose rough-in must be less than 1/16" accuracy to fit properly in the tile. Do you know how hard that is to do when trying to get multiple trades to communicate? This is the only company i know of that deems it reasonable to set such strict requirements. They design in a vacuum, and not for practical use. Then, if you search this forum, you'll find stories of kohler bending over backward to help people, then you'll find others where they say, sorry, you'll just have to replace the thing...we won't help you. So much for a decent, stable design and continued availability of replacement parts. Few places carry kohler replacement parts since their design changes so often, the inventory would be huge, with no expectation of ever recovering the investment. So, do you want to wait a week or more when you need a part? If you do, buy kohler. My personal opinion and experience." When is your project scheduled? Looking forward to seeing your progress! When I started posting here I swear A2gemini and I were going to have identical kitchens. But Cambria here is crazy expensive and many colors on backorder, so granite it is! What color icork? I'm still debating, I've over-analyzed to the point where I need to revisit some choices before I decide for sure. I'm tracking down a US Floors sample Tuesday, ironically the one I loved back at the start and decided was too dark so never pursued. Still love the Globus, but not sure now about the opacity of their stains since I am loving varied options now. Almost time to order!

Artemis78 asks (questions answered out of order in relation to the posting): "...we have a very tight space to fit the toilet in. The current one is a round bowl that is set out from the wall, ... will still have a tight squeeze between the toilet and the nearby tub. ... So I'm thinking this means we should stick with a round bowl to save the meager inch or two that we pick up doing that ..." Within a specific toilet model the elongated bowl version will stick out farther from the back wall than the round bowl version, but there are some brands and models of elongated bowl toilets that have shorter dimensions from the wall to the front of the bowl than the round bowl versions of other brands and models. A manufacturer's specification sheet or a tape measure taken to a showroom may help you better than general advice from this forum. Also, the base of the user's spine, or tailbone position, near the hinge of he toilet seat will be the same for the round and elongated versions of any specific toilet model, so the knees of the person who sits on the toilet will stick out the same distance whether the bowl is round or elongated. "Wondered if anyone could share which high-efficiency toilet you chose and how you like it. Our plumber recommends the Toto Drake as a good basic model, but I want to understand what else is out there, too." Understand that the best toilet designs in the world come from Japan. Until recently, the only Japanese designed toilets that have been readily available in North America have been the Toto line, and they are very good. In direct answer to your question, we installed a Toto Vespin II (the skirted version of the latest Toto Drake) in January of this year, and it fully satisfied our (high) expectations for it. It flushes well with minimal water use, and the flush action completes rapidly; it is also easy to keep clean. The "other" major Japanese toilet maker (number 2 in market share in Japan and considered more innovative than Toto) is Inax, which is just making a big push into the Nortth American market. Five years from now, an inquiry such as yours undoubtedly would have a lot of responses recommending models of Inax toilets. Inaxes are as excellent as Totos, but harder to find. Because of the way that Toto and Inax have elected to market their wares in North America, you will see neither at any big-box store. You will have to go to a specialty plumbing retailer to see a Toto or an Inax in a showroom setting. Or, you can fly to Japan, where all of the toilets in the airports, and most of the toilets in the high-end hotels, are Inax. Terry Love, who sometimes contributes to this forum, sells both Toto and Inax in the Seattle area, and also on-line. Here is a link that might be useful: Terry Love's consumer toilet reports

Just a couple of things about the Persuade: the "regular" height seat is only an inch or so lower than the comfort height version, and they are very hard to install and use non-standard parts inside. I love the way they look, but if you do some reading over at Terry Love, you'll see what plumbers have to say (even in the plumbing forum here, too). The big thing is that when you need to replace the innards down the road, you can't just run out and buy a new fillmaster. It will be a special order from Kohler.

> But Toto found that women were not particularly enthusiastic to volunteer for serious researchers to take a ruler and measure that distance. So the male researchers were dispatched to certain bars where commonly the bargirls repair to a separate room for private time with individual male customers, if you know what I mean. The researchers brought their rulers with them to the bars. What, does Toto not employ any female engineers who could check this out on themselves? If not, don't any of them have wives or girlfriends? Or gee, any female friends at all? Don't they know any gynecologists, who I'm sure could answer their question? I have a hard time believing this story - I can't imagine a major company paying their workers to visit strip clubs. And I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy who pulled out a ruler and asked to take measurements..... My commode experience: Toto Drake / G-Max 1.6g - won't clog or overflow (which is why plumbers like it), but it send enough water down the sides or back of the bowl to clean the walls well, and I sometimes have a piece of toilet paper that sticks to the side after a flush. Nearly all the water is sent down a flume in the front. It does flush incredibly quickly - it's done in about 2 seconds, and refills in maybe 15. Kohler Ingenium - inexpensive (some of them); these don't seem to do well in standardized testing, but they work well in real life. It spreads the water more evenly, and it swirls for a few seconds during each flush which results in a clean bowl with no sticking paper. Flush lever has to be held down for about a full second or it won't take. Crane - a cheap loo that doesn't seem to ever get mentioned here, but the 1.6g version (sorry, don't have the model number, but it's their basic cheap one) works extremely well and leaves a clean bowl; only complaint is the small area normally under water. Avoid their 1.1g low-water version though - it's awful. American Standard Champion 4 - works very well, inexpensive, but it sure uses a lot of funky parts in the tank like the flapper or valve that aren't stocked at the big-box hardware store.