Q & A Episode 71 - Loser are Winners: How a $5,000 Toilet Changed My Life—And Made My Kids Laugh Hysterically
Episode #71 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | How a $5,000 Toilet Changed My Life
In this Loser are Winners episode, Mark takes us through his funny and surprisingly eventful quest to get a fancy Toto bidet toilet installed at home—trust us, it’s way more complicated (and entertaining) than you’d think! He chats about family debates, high-tech bathroom features, and some wellness-focused home upgrades coming to his Mysa Hus project. If you’ve ever battled over a home improvement project with your family or just love a good laugh about everyday life, this one’s for you!
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Mark D. Williams 00:00
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Mark D. Williams 00:59
We sort of went down this whole exploratory wellness journey over the last year and a half, which we're still doing and very excited about. I reached out to toto again and said, Hey, I want to not only reuse the toilet you gave me and finally have a home for it, but I'd like to do a lot more, really special. Thanks to Dan at Toto. I'm sorry it took me three years to install the toilet you gave me welcome
Mark D. Williams 01:27
to the curious, bitter Podcast. I'm Mark Williams. Your host. Today is Thursday, and it is our losers are winner stories, and I got a doozy for you. So this one's going to be all about the day toilets. So if you've been following our project over at Misa house, it's our Swedish inspired wellness home that we're doing as a spec home over for Mark Williams custom homes. I'm doing three bi days in there. But the story is a lot older. So about three years ago, not two weeks two maybe two years ago, I was in Chicago, and I was visiting with Tracy bench from a local rep house here that does all of our appliances through Ferguson, not appliances, I'm sorry, plumbing fixtures. And I've always loved totos, and I want to know more. And so I actually it started at IBS two and a half years ago. And so we're I saw her there, and we're walking around, and I said, I love totos. And she says, You got to come over Meet Dan. He's one of the head guys in North America. So I go over meet this character, of a character, Dan, and we're walking around talking about toilets. And I love his line. He's like, in Europe, the days are huge, and in the US, they're just not. It's probably more of a cultural thing than anything else. And honestly, I am 45 I've never used a bidet, and I've traveled in Europe, but I've traveled around, and I just never had the opportunity to use one. And so I'm like, you know, like a lot of people, ignorance leads to a lot of judgments and things that you just aren't aware of. And I said I would love to get one of these in one of our homes. And yes, they're expensive, but I loved his thought is, like, you know, if you're really sweaty after a workout, you know, do you just take a towel and just wipe your body, or do you go take a shower? And so he obviously likened it to your butt. Like, you know, why in the United States is it such a common thing that you take dry toilet paper and you do your business, you do your duty, as they say, as the kids speak and and like, why? What? Why are we so afraid of a bade or water, and all the different features that these really amazing toilets have? And really, there's a wellness aspect it to it. So he said, tell you what I will. I'll get you a total toilet. You have to put it one of your homes. And I said, Great. I'll put it in my own personal home. He said, Awesome. Shoot some content for us, and we will. I was just starting to do brand work, so this is kind of one of our first things. So I come home all excited. As I recall, it was like, I don't know, maybe a 4030 $700 or $5,000 toilet somewhere in there. Somewhere in there. And I told my wife, I said, Hey, we got a new toilet. It's a bidet. It's gonna be amazing. And my wife is like, great, no problem. Put it in. So the problem is, you need power. So we earned a 1919 house, so we'd remodeled it about five years before. And so I'm like, okay, how am I gonna get power up there? And our bathroom in the basement had wood wanes coating everywhere, so I didn't want to rip that up. I didn't want to put it in the power put it in the powder room again, wood Wayne Wayne's coating and wallpaper everywhere, and also no power. But actually, on the opposite side of in our owner suite, where the toilet goes, is an outlet for a lamp. I'm like, perfect. They can just split the wire, put it on the backside. No drywall, like no mess, like easy PC, the electrician can probably do this in under 1520 minutes. And so I lined up. The electrician lined up, the plumber. Had everyone ready to go. Let's keep mine this like two years ago, and the day before, my wife says, No, cancel it. I'm like, What are you talking about? Had a nice little marital fight about it, and she's like, because if you install it, this will be the only toilet you use. And I'm like, Well, it's a toilet and it's in our bathroom, like, so yes, I will use it. She goes, and the kids will like it because it's got a heated sleep so we have three kids. They're like, so that means only the kids will use it as well. So it will collectively be the only toilet we're.
Mark D. Williams 05:00
That anyone uses in the house, and I don't want everyone using my toilet. And so we had a nice little moment where I'm like, well, it's not your toilet, it's our toilet. And, you know, toilets are meant to be used. And you could imagine where this conversation went. It went down the drain. Pun intended. So, long story short, I had to cancel the electrician, cancel the plumber, and it sat in my garage for a year, and, like, 10 months, so almost two years, and it was a no go. Every once in a while I'd bring it up, and she just give me the look like, no this. You can put it anywhere else in the house that you want, but I didn't want to spend another three, $4,000 rewaynes coating a bunch of walls. So I was like, so it just sat there and I waited for a homeowner. I was gonna give it to a homeowner as kind of a like a parade home or a tour home for them to try it out on. So when Misa, who's came around, and we sort of went down this whole exploratory wellness journey over the last year and a half, which we're still doing and very excited about, I reached out to toto again and said, Hey, I want to not only reuse the toilet you gave me and finally have a home for it, but I'd like to do a lot more. So I was out in Chicago for one of our curious builder collectives, Ian, think it was September, October, and tried them all out, not personally, but just like, meaning like, go look in their showroom, and then picked out a couple that we wanted, and we got them ordered. And so one thing I should probably mention, there's a company called visium. Jonathan Kramer is the person that I met with here locally in Minnesota, and they're going to be featured in MISA, who's in all of the bathrooms. And it's, it's kind of like a recess can that goes in the bathrooms. It can go anywhere. Kitchens are fine too. And basically it shines down UV light, and the UV light kills bacteria and the places in our house that has the most bacteria are kitchens and bathrooms. As you would imagine, I didn't want it in the kitchen this visium light, just because I didn't love it's nice looking, but not so nice that I want it in a multi million dollar ceiling above the kitchen sink, which they understood, but I said, Absolutely, I'll put it in all the bathrooms. Let's beta test this and see how it goes. And they were happy, happy happy to work with us and support it. So we're really excited to get these all installed. And the UV light kills fecal bacteria, poop, poop particles in the air and and I'm familiar with UV lights. We put them sometimes in our in the plenum of our furnaces, because it kills, again, bacteria. I'll kill the bacteria, and then the filter takes the particles out of the air, healthier for to breathe things like that. We're also doing that at Misa, who's as well. But I also wanted a UV light that would kill, well, fecal bacteria at the point of contact. Well, it turns out Toto, they're really high end toilets. I mean, they are expensive. I think their top top of the line is like 2530 grand. Those actually have UV lights in the toilet themselves, which is pretty awesome. We did not do those ones. We picked the ones that were, like, seven or $8,000 are beautiful. Toilets are very, very nice. They do all the same functions. They just don't have, you know, stylistically, there's a few changes. And then also, of course, the UV light, but I've got the UV light covered above. So anyway, fast forward to today, about three weeks ago. You know, we're sleeping in our in our bedroom, and the toilet is running, and you hear that kind of jiggle, the little the plunger, and take off the top, you play around with the chain, and you do all the seals. And we've been doing this for like six months to a year, on this dumb toilet in our owner's suite. And my wife finally says, Can you please get a new toilet? Keep in mind that I had told my project manager, like, two weeks before this, to come to my house, get the toto toilet that had been sitting in our basement for like, a year and 10 months, bring it to me. So who? So that it was ready for when the plumbers and that was one, one toilet that we did not have to order for Misa, who's so I'm like, wait a minute, the toilet that has been sitting in our basement for the last year and a half that you said I could not put in our in our, our bathroom. Now you're okay with it going in. And she's like, Yeah. I'm like, Oh, my word. This is so on par. So I call the PM. I say, Can you please, actually, I think I loaded up in my car. I said, I'll bring it back to the office, because we had it in storage. I bring it all the way back. Line up the electricians. Line up the plumbers, we ordered a secondary toto toilet for the kids bathroom, because that also needed replaced. And I said to my wife, I said, Well, if I can do both toilets, one of the day and one normal. Are you fine with that? And you don't have any reservations, because I don't want to go through that. I want to line everyone up and then have you cancel it again the day before. And she said, Nope, I'm not going to cancel it this
Mark D. Williams 09:24
time.
Mark D. Williams 09:29
We're happy to announce that on March 20, Sonic camp will be coming back to Minnesota, out on Lake independence. We're going to do a half day event, and we're going to start out with a one hour podcast. We've got Alex Larson, who's an iron woman. She's also a professional nutritionalist coached. We've got Ryan Rivard. He's completed multiple Iron Man's the Leadville 100 he's also climbed Mount Everest, and he talks a lot about addiction, and leads a lot of similar like groups. So I'm really excited to hear Ryan's point of view. And then we also have Alex neist. He's from Minnesota. He invented host.
Mark D. Williams 10:00
Tape. It's actually the number one brand for stop snoring. It's a big part of wellness. Is how you sleep. After that, we're going to have a two hour session of sauna and cold plunge at people's own desires. We're gonna have different temperature saunas. We're also gonna have different theme saunas. And then my friend Chris hews it from Legacy chocolates in St Paul. He's one of our sponsors. He's gonna have drinking chocolate. It's Himalayan drinking chocolate. It's like nothing you've ever had. So your body's gonna be super starved for nutrients. And then we're gonna end the evening, which is always everyone's favorite part. The fumo Collective is an incredible wood fired grill, lamb on the bone, chicken. It's got tabbouleh baba ganoush, very Mediterranean, Blue Zone, type of cuisine. The food is amazing. So hope you can join us again. That's March 20. That'll be sauna camp. All the details can be found on cures builder podcast.com
Mark D. Williams 10:54
so we get everyone lined up, and last week we had successful installation. Cue. Cheers, right now. So now the story gets really funny. So I'm I, so I come home and there's this beautiful bidet in our owner suite. I'm think this is great. I didn't have to go the bathroom, so I wasn't, like, gonna try it for no reason. So I'm like, Well, I guess I'm just gonna wait. I get up really early go to the gym. So a lot of times I'm going to the bathroom at the gym. DMI, but you know, we're talking about the day. So here you go. So I come home and my middle son, Simon, so they're all naked. So I got may Simon and Tate, they're all ready to go to bath after after dinner, I give him baths. And they are sitting around, and my wife had it called, they're all gathered around this toilet, like it's a, you know, like a shrine in the jungle, and there's gonna be gold in it or something. So Simon sits down. I'm like, You ready, buddy? He's like, yep. And he sits down, and he's like, oh. He's like, the seat is so warm. This is amazing. And all the kids are laughing. I'm dying laughing because I'm like, this prophecy where my wife said that everyone's gonna use her toilet is like, definitely coming to happen to coming to fruition. So they're all, it's like, he goes to the bathroom. And I said, all right, buddy. I said, Do you know what happens next? He's like, nope. And I said, like, well, there's a little button over here. It shows like a little water squirter on these two half moons, which is your bum. And I was like, hit this button.
Mark D. Williams 12:11
I wish I had a video for just internal use, but I thought I'd be judged, so I didn't do it. And he turns on the water jet, and he starts laughing. I don't know if I've ever heard Simon laugh this hard. He is just cracking up laughing. Part of the problem too, is he sitting a little too far on the seat, so some of the water is coming up his backside a little bit, which is pretty funny. But he is just he thinks this is the funniest thing that's ever happened in his life. He is giggling. All the kids are laughing. I'm laughing. We're just having this is the funniest thing. I was like, alright, buddy, you done. He's just, he can hardly keep it together as like, Okay, now hit the dryer button. So he hit the dryer button, and now he goes into a whole nother fit of laughter. And he's just dying laughing about this thing. And so anyway, he's all done. Gets off. And now all the other kids, course, want to try. So over the next couple days, everyone is given a world now, my wife is right. All the kids want to do is use this bidet, and so I haven't asked my wife yet what she thinks of it. And anyway, I just thought it was kind of a funny story that I wanted to share, and also really special. Thanks to Dan at toto
Mark D. Williams 13:19
it for being patient. I'm sorry it took me three years to install the toilet you gave me, but it is now installed. I will talk about it, and I'm really excited. One of the things I was kind of commenting on, and the reason I want to share the story is, you know, because Misa house is a house based around wellness and shocker, everybody poops. It's a normal thing, people. Is most of the time. At a parade home or our tour home, you'll have the signs on the toilet says, Please do not use you know, there's hundreds of people through your house. Like, it's just weird to like, have people, like, lock themselves in the bathroom and use the bathroom when people are walking through. And that's probably normal and probably a good thing. I've certainly done it. I might design, I haven't decided yet, but I think I might designate a toilet in the house during the tour again, to promote total, because we have a partnership with them where it probably be in the basement or something like this, and maybe there'd be, like, a queue line, like, you know, take a number to use it. That's perfect. Take a ticket to, you know, to go number two and get in queue kind of thing. And anyway, it's going to be, please use our toilet. So forget the days where you'd have the stickers on your toilets to say, please do not use this. One would say, please use so anyway, that home will be done in May. And I actually have this idea, again, I don't know if people are going to find this nearly as funny as I do, but almost like it have to be a bit of a stage thing. But like, and you have to find someone really willing to be but basically, just like, take a selfie video and get, like, a series of like, 10 people practicing and using this toilet and then the ensuing water and dryer just, I just think it'd be hilarious. I don't know why it's so taboo, why we can't talk about this stuff. It's like, No, how would anyone have any issue talking about a shower? Like, that's not that big of a deal. And so, but for whatever reason, washing your butt is a big deal. So.
Mark D. Williams 15:00
Well, anyway, I'm here to remove that stereotype that is my losers are winner story today. So stay tuned. We will see if this has a successful outcome or not. That's all I got. Have a great rest of your week. Next week will be Christmas. We have a really, a really cool episode airing on Monday. Teddy seiple as a builder out in Connecticut, and he went through a 2.4
Mark D. Williams 15:27
No $2.3 billion that's a B lawsuit from the state of New York, and we captured his whole story on the curious builder. So if you want something to be thankful for, if you want to hear about resilience, tune in. Next Monday, Teddy is going to break down his story. It is highly entertaining. You will laugh, you might cry, you will feel very uncomfortable. You will also feel like, wow. Whatever you have endured, you can keep going. And you know, this time is the time of year where, you know, we talk a lot about mental health, we talk a lot about camaraderie, we talk a lot about support, and just seasonally. This is always a time where people get seasonal depression, and so I wanted this story to really time out right before going to the holidays. Of just one of kind of one man's journey, and really a family journey of how they went through and kind of made it through to the other side of this story. So please tune in Monday. It's going to be a whopper of an episode. Have a great week. And thanks for tuning in to the curious builder podcast. Thanks for
Mark D. Williams 16:24
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