$700+ toilet seat cover? For that kind of money, it better have the functions of the Toto bidet covers!!!

Wood toilet seats may look nice but they are gross! They soak up fluids and crack and break easily. I've experienced this with two wood toilet seats over my lifetime. Go for something more durable.

I found these. Not exactly the same, but much more affordable.

http://www.rensup.com/Products/Cat-1877.htm

Garvey's stuff is gorgeous but teak is "conflict timber" Planet Ark says "Myanmar's famed teak forests are shrinking due to rampant logging fueled by a cash-strapped military government and timber-hungry neighbors China and Thailand." and just last month the Independent said "Burmese teak remains on a US Department of Labour list of items for "which there is a reasonable basis to believe ... may have been mined, produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labour." and "There's simply no need to make furniture from conflict timber."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/william_garvey.php

Agree with Lloyd. I don't understand how anyone represents this wood as "green".

That's funny - I didn't realize you wrote that article!

Aside from wood holding in fluid and cracking, it is an excellent bacteria breeding ground. Not a welcome characteristic for a toilet of all things.

Personally I suspect if we had the funds for a Duravit Starck II toilet AND the Garvey lid, we probably wouldn't be worrying about cleaning the toilet anyway. The domestic help would be cleaning it multiple times daily if needed. LOL.

Ooh, my ass thinks it's pretty.

When my bum says things I pretend not to hear.

The #1 advantage of a wooden toilet seat - in the middle of a cold winter night, it's not *so* cold to sit on, compared to other toilet seats. Most wood ones are very This Old House in design, so it's nice to see a modern one.

I have a wooden one myself, but I traded a bunch of old light fixtures for it instead of paying for it. Even the This Old House ones are expensive.

Could we get back to more affordable items/ suggestions please?

Thanks

I know a woman with a padded toilet seat. Like padded plasticky cushioning. Is that the creepiest thing ever? Because it's comfy but I can't not be grossed out.

hmmm...is it toilet month again?

A quick comment on the sustainability of supply, not all teak is conflict timber. There are significant supplies of FSC certified teak from South America and possibly Indonesia. India also has well-managed (but not certified) teak forests. So in order to assess the sustainability of this wood you would need more details on where its sourced from. If the company is serious about selling green products then they will have a chain of custody certification.

If I could afford a $700 toilet seat, I would buy a bunch of regular toilet seats instead and donate them to Habitat for Humanity.

Am I the only one who likes toilets to be as innocuous as possible? I have a hard time understanding why they're featured so often here on AT... it's a necassary household appliance I would sooner forget.

Yeah, but MGR is at that stage of early parenthood where people think it's exciting to describe their baby's bowel movements in graphic detail... over dinner... to near-strangers. Having been in the path of this conversational gambit with coworkers many times, I'm relieved it's only toilets we're seeing.

(Yes, I know this makes me a soulless suburbanite who wants everything shrinkwrapped from the smelly realities of life... and I'm at peace with that.)

Okay, what's with the post deletions? Forest Ecologist said more info on sourcing was needed -- I pointed out that the maker *says* the teak is from Myanmar, thus Lloyd Alter's conclusion that it's conflict timber -- and my post gets deleted. There was no profanity and only mild sarcasm.

So the infamous Jonathan was allowed to post slurs and outright attacks, but now pointing out a verifiable fact is grounds for deletion, if it contradicts the official line on what products to push?

This isn't the first time I've had a factual post deleted, apparently because I expressed disagreement. It's really disturbing and makes me wonder what else I'm missing during the day.

$$$$! Van den Puup appruuves!

Just a small point-- I'm not sure the fancy teak toilet seat manufacturer actually said their teak is sourced from Burma-- I think it was Planet Ark that said that Burmese timber is probably conflict timber.
But that's beside the point. Having been on the Thai-Burmese border a month ago (Thai-side) I can confirm that you can't really trust the origin of teak. I saw a number of vehicles in and around Chiang Rai (Thailand) lugging raw old growth teak boards-- obviously just smuggled across the Mekong from Burma and Laos. So now that wood gets a Thai certificate of origin-- but it was still logged out of old growth by tree poachers, and Burmese or Laotian opium warlords likely got a bribe from whoever illicitly brought it into Thailand.
Small world, ain't it, when your fancy toilet seat subsidizes the regime that calls itself Myanmar?