Unique Toilet Seats of a Bygone Era

As you look at all the unique toilet seats on these pages did you ever wonder what toilet seats were like a 150 years ago? Folks back then didn't have a wide selection of colored toilet seats to choose from.

However, many people did have toilets in their homes even if they did not enjoy central plumbing. Yes the outhouse was very common but also available was the indoor commode.

One fancy toilet seat available back then was a bureau and commode combined. It was one of the top toilet seats and not everyone could afford it. Here's how it was described at the time.


Combined Bureau and Commode.—This invention; consists H combining, in one and the same piece of furniture, a bureau and commode, the commode being so arranged, with regard to the bureau, that it can be moved out and in at pleasure, according as it is desired or not to use it—the commode, when not in use, being wholly encased within the bureau. By this combination a very neat, simple and compact piece of furniture is obtained; and in addition to a bureau and commode, other necessary articles, used for similar purposes to the commode, are also arranged in connection with it; the whole presenting a most convenient and desirable piece of furniture, worthy the examination of furniture manufacturers. George W. Koch, of No. 150 Wooster street, New York, is the inventor.

Imagine having that top designer toilet seat in your home! Let me take you back in time to discover how folks arranged their bathrooms 150 years ago.

Here's Nelly Browne describing how she set up a sick room, including a unique toilet, for an ailing relative.

In order to have our invalid in a large, sunny room, it became necessary to move her and her belongings into a room that had no closet. In an ordinary sleeping-room the lack of a closet seems the lack of the one thing needful, but in a sick-room a closet seems indispensable. Especially is it so when the nurse is a sister or daughter who, in addition to the care of the invalid, has also the general care of the household, and does with her own hands the greater part of the housework. Then the saving of steps becomes a matter that must be planned for, and articles that are used daily in the sick-room must, as far as is possible, be kept in the room or near at hand. It was suggested to us that a closet might be improvised by throwing a cretonne curtain across one corner of the room; but to this our invalid rather objected, having an unconquerable dislike to what she calls "calico furniture." She begged for a reprieve of a day or two, believing she could plan something that would do away with such a necessity. And this is what she finally planned, and what we, under her directions, carried into execution :

The headboard of the bedstead was very high, its center reaching nearly to the top of the room, and its lowest corners being high enough to conceal a person standing behind it. Into a narrow strip of wood, three-fourths of an inch thick, and as long as the width of the bedstead, we screwed twelve small hat hooks, and then screwed the strip to the back of the headboard, about four feet from the floor. The bedstead was then placed so that its head stood across a corner of the room, and there was a closet! Wrapper, flannel skirt, dressing sack, bed-shoes, etc., were hung on the hooks,—out of sight but within easy reach.

The bedstead being very wide, the triangular space it cut off was found to be large enough to admit a narrow table ; so a table was placed across the corner, parallel with the headboard. On one end of it, to-day, an earthen tile—one of those so prettily used as teapot-stands—and a small tray hold medicine bottles, glasses, teaspoons, and water pitcher. On the other end are piled the extra blanket and pillows used when the invalid is propped up in bed. The bedstead corners are not close to the wall; on that side of the bed least exposed to the room space is left between wall and bed-post for a door-way to the closet.

Next we turned our attention to the commode. We built a narrow shelf across its back, not too far from the top to be reached easily, and devoted it to hair-brush, tooth-brush, etc., our invalid having a notion that such articles ought never to be shut away from the air, in box or drawer. No amount of care, no degree of neatness, is sufficient to keep them quite sweet when thus shut away.

When the commode was rolled into position across a corner, there was room behind it for the slop-jar,—an article always too suggestive of homely uses to be strictly ornamental. The commode had one drawer, and below the drawer a closet perhaps fifteen inches high. We built a wide shelf across the upper part of this closet, and on this were soon arranged a row of two-ounce vials containing ammonia, carbolic acid, alcohol, spirits of camphor, rose water, and other like articles used in sick-rooms; boxes of vaseline, borax, mustard, etc., and last, but not least in importance, a flat wooden box in which " may be found at any time of day or night," hop bags ready for use, large pieces of flannel, and a good supply of' what our invalid calls " emergency rags," both linen and cotton.

To the inside of one of the commode doors we tacked a stout linen pocket to hold a brush-broom and a dusting-cloth; on the other door we hung a dust-pan.

The deep drawers of an old-fashioned bureau hold the invalid's wearing apparel and the sheets and pillow-cases used in this room; towels, handkerchiefs, and wash-cloths are kept in the commode drawer, and three table-drawers stand ready at all times to receive or to deliver up any one of a hundred little things too small to claim a special place of their own.

So our invalid is living very cozily in her room without a closet. Everything needed in taking care of the room has found a place in it, except a broom. To-day the Genius and Architect of the family suggests that the broom be hung on the twelfth hat hook, which suggestion we propose to carry out to-morrow morning.

How far we have come. Most modern homes have several complete bathrooms with very comfortable toilet seats. Many even come with elongated toilet seats and heated toilet seats. How Nelly would have marveled.