naadimre: "i'm between the Duravit Starck 3 with Sensowash C and the Toto Aquia with S350e Washlet. i love the clean appearance of the duravit line, especially but i've heard unfortunate things about the flushing mechanism so i'm a little gun-shy in making this purchase. i was wondering, since the Washlet can be fit onto many types of toilets can the same be done for the Sensowash? I think it's a lot nicer looking than the Washlet." There are two separate issues in your question. One is that "the Duravit Starck 3" is not a single model, but a family of models with different shaped bowls and (therefore) requiring different toilet seats. If you have a square-front Duravit, only a square front Duravit seat will fit. The other is that Starck is a designer: he styles products, but he does not engineer them. Toto Washlets fit Inax toilets, and Inax advanced toilet seats fit Toto toilets, because the Japanese giants sensibly have decided that it is in their mutual interest to have component interchangeability. The American and European makers are still locked into the King Gillette theory of marketing, and -- generally -- components are not interchangeable. Schick blades do not fit Gillette razors, and Gillette blades do not fit Schick razors. Inax invented the consumer advanced or "shower" toilet seat, and Toto has sold more of those overseas (though not necessarily in the home market of Japan) than anybody. Between them, Toto and Inax have a huge base of engineering knowledge and experience; they know how to make advanced toilet seats; Inax and Toto know what mistakes to avoid in the design of advanced toilet seats; they have the know-how and the know-how-not. Duravit? Probably not. They have an internationally renowned stylist to make a seat look snazzy, but in toilet seats, function trumps style. If the function of an advanced toilet seat is what you want, you are best off sticking with Inax or Toto; if you want styling more than you want function, go with the Duravit. (When we had the decision to make in our home, we chose a Toto toilet and an Inax seat, playing to the relative strengths of both brands.)

Kendrahrose, Thank you for the kind words! (And everyone else too!) I chose the Antique Heart Pine and we installed it (insane to do in such a tiny space! You can't use a floor nailer!) My thought process is, this bathroom will eventually be adjacent to a kitchen with exactly the same flooring - so it will look like it just ran in there too. I really debated doing 1 inch hex, but it's such a small space, and it's really hard to work in, so tile would have been challenging since it would have been our first tile project. Our house is built in 1884, so simple and classic were top priorities. There are before/progress photos on my other thread that started out as the thread for my basement bathroom project then got hijacked by the powder room as it was supposed to be a quicker finish! (We had some major distractions, so it took about 5 months vs the expected 6-8 weeks). So back to the flooring - it's River Recovered Select Antique Heart Pine, and it's finished with about 6 coats of Waterlox Original Finish with no stain. And eventually, my basement stair landings, and kitchen will have the same wood. This tiny project was the "let's see how much we really like it!" and I love it. I did learn I'll spend the extra $ when we do the kitchen for Clear Select, as the knots bugged me, but we had plenty of wood to cut around the ones that irritated me. I wish I could get a better photo of the room, it really did turn out great. And the running joke around here is I did probably spend a third of the budget on the art work and frames. But honestly, that's what makes the room. You all will just have to come and stand in it (one at a time of course!) to admire it properly! ;-) Always ;-) Hunzi Photo - behold - Mr G's 1950's bathroom from hell - but without the bathtub and the KNEE WALL conveniently located so close to the door/toilet/sink (see the flooring for it's location) What fun it was! The new powder room is in the closet you see in the back right. Here is a link that might be useful: Scroll Down for Before/Progress photos

When we bought our home in 1976, the master bath had a bidet and toilet. We had no clue how to use the bidet. It had no seat and "hovering" wasn't an option. It looked like a urinal to me. (being from the Midwest). I stuck a fern in it. A couple years later we remodeled and eliminated the bidet. This last Fall, we traveled for 3 weeks thru SE Asia, and in almost every hotel bathroom was a Toto toilet with a washlet. You just turned the little knob on the side and the water would come on (pressure to be determined by how much you opened the valve). After you "evacuated" a little thingie came out and sprayed "those parts" until you turned it off. You could reposition your bottom (lean forward) to wash other parts too! I fell in LOVE! Having had travelers diarrhea and wiping a sore bottom was not a good thing, but blotting was. No special piping, just a splitter off the water inlet to the toilet. Got home and looked up Washlets, and realized that in the tropics, the cold water is always room temp...HOWEVER the water in the states in Winter can get pretty cold, so that is why the washlets need so many more controls to determine the temp of the water spraying on those private parts. I still don't get how a bidet works. Do you have to do your "business" over the toilet then move over to the separate toilet? Do Americans take more showers than Europeans so "cleaning" those girly parts daily happens in the shower rather than over the bidet. I hope no-one thinks I'm being crude here...just very curious. If you have both a toilet and a separate bidet fixture, how do you use them?????? -Babka

Having two separate fixtures can fill a space in a good way. Or it can limit what you can do with the space. Washlets are convenient in that you're already on the seat. You don't have to move from one fixture to another. With the myriad functions (general spray, feminine spray, enema stream, drying air, heated water, carbon air filters, etc) there are certainly more bells and whistles on a washlet seat than there are on a basic stand-alone bidet. I've used bidets. I've used washlet seats. I prefer the washlet. I do think many of the functions can be a bit superfluous, but there are folks who use every one of them and love them. We have two washlet seats in our house. We originally had a Toto300 in our master, a few years later I put a BioBidet1000 in another bathroom. My wife and I both prefer the BB1000 so I swapped that that into our master bath several years ago. No regrets.