Well bugger!

The toilet is almost complete. Cost so far, 2 and a bit pieces of 2x4 at $4 each, one piece of plywood at $15, about $20 of specialist screws, $6 of hinges, $6 on a specially long drill bit plus a ton of OSB, aggro and the bloody thing doesn't look like its going to work.

The lid binds on my door lock when I hinge it upwards. I'm really not sure what to do about it. One possible solution would be to cut a notch in the lid where it binds in order to allow it to swing freely. That'd be very redneck and not visually pleasing.

Another solution would be to cut the thing in half and just have the grit bucket under the handbasin. I hate wasting materials and money.

Yet another solution would be to cut the lid in half with the toilet side hinged and the other side held down with toggle bolts.

A final solution would be to burn the blasted thing and go and buy a toilet. I hate that idea because all my life in Britain I was surrounded by people whose cry was buy it, don't build it. And who on the rare occasions that building it didn't work would sneer that I'd wasted my money and should have bought it.

I'm going to have to think on it overnight. All day ive been battling 37% humidity and 100F (38C). Work has been in bursts of 15 minutes. In between bursts have been longer sessions cooling off.

Generally, I suppose the first solution, cutting a piece out of the lid might prove the most immediately effective solution. Given how much effort sent into the toilet, I'm very loathe to abandon the project. As far as completion is concerned, all the toilet needs is a hardboard front, some screws to hold the seat down and a proper lid on the grit compartment. Those jobs will probably take to the end of tomorrow.

I had a look at the bead curtain I bought off eBay. The picture on eBay looks nothing like the raggedy junk that arrived. It's supposed to be more of a privacy curtain but the reality is terrible. It's definitely not a privacy curtain. As it us, its unusable. Needless to say I've rather more a feeling, having seen 100 bad reviews for that seller for this month alone, mostly for deceptive descriptions and deceptive photos, they could be pretty slap happy about business.

So, tomorrow I'll try to rescue the toilet or maybe complete my closet door. It was suggested that making a bead curtain is a possibility. Indeed I spent some time in Imanta in Latvia where my hostess, Mara, actually had made a very effective bead curtain using string and driftwood.

Let's hope for a better day tomorrow!