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Turns out, I didn’t know the best way to replace my toilet after I had finished the tile. I didn’t tile close enough around the gasket set into the floor. I also put both sets of washers for the bolts that attach the toilet to the gasket, underneath the toilet, instead of one set below, and one set above. I also didn’t put the wax ring in properly, and it would have leaked had we fully re-connected the water supply and filled the basin again.

So here are a few tips when getting ready to reinstall a toilet:

• Make sure as you’re laying out your floor–if you’re using tile–so that you get as close as possible to the gasket. Basically tile within an inch of it if you can, by making pieces that are triangular or otherwise, so that you get a close fit. If you don’t you’ll have untiled surface poking out from under the porcelain base of the toilet.
• Fully remove the old wax ring before you place the new ring down. It’s easy to overlook this step, but if you don’t do it, you won’t get a solid connection between the toilet and the gasket and you’ll have leaks, and you don’t want those kinds of leaks, trust me.
• When putting in the bolts that come with the wax ring kit, make sure that you only put the plastic guide washers in underneath. Then use the metal washers after you replace the toilet. This way the nut will squeeze the washer down and create a solid hold on the toilet, preventing it from shifting later on. So do it in this order - bolts, plastic washers, toilet, metal washers, nut, plastic caps to conceal the hardware.
• Those bolts, especially if they’re brass, can have very sharp threads.  I found this out the hard way, and now have a series of cuts that match up perfectly with the width of the bolt, and they are deep.  So please be careful when handling these bolts, and consider wearing gloves–even the thin plastic gloves may help protect your hands.

I am sure that there are other things to watch out for when putting your toilet back in, but these are things that I have personally done wrong and need to warn you about. I will post pictures of the wrong way to do it, and then pictures of the right way to do it once we add the required tile pieces, and fix the other stuff.

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