You knew darn well it had to come to this: the most basic daily function accomplished with the aid of a hockey stick.
As anyone who has visited a cabin with an outhouse knows, the paper holder has several forms. The most basic version is a neatly bound old retail catalog with dog-eared glossy pages. One step above this is the single-post style roll holder. It offers easy access to real toilet paper and no-hassle roll replacement. This style sidesteps the “roll towards you or away from you” debate currently raging in Home Decor circles.
What can I tell you about a stick attached to a board? You can challenge yourself by trying to cut out a perfectly round base. Or you might try an elaborate base of complex pieces fitted together with such skill that it will hold a captive audience’s attention for the time required to take care of business. You might carve The Thinker at the end of the stick. Whatever you decide, just make sure that the stick is tall enough to actually hold the roll.
The conventional horizontal roll holder is a real craft project. A father could spend hours of quality time working on it with his child, passing on the proper use of tools, anecdotes of times past, and bathroom humour.
The most demanding part of this model is the bar. So the bar will rotate easily, drill a hole wider than the barrel of the screw you will use, but smaller than the head, into the end of one bracket. Drive the screw through one end of the bar, making sure it protrudes far enough to slip into the hole you drilled in the bracket. Cut a notch into the other arm of the bracket so that the paper holder falls easily and securely into place. Some toilet paper rolls are bigger than others, so give yourself one and a half times the radius of a new roll for proper clearance.
And since we’re in the neighbourhood, how about ensuring your privacy in the privy with a lovely hand-crafted Witty Hockey Themed Bathroom Occupancy Designator, or WHTBOD?
You may choose any clever word combination to signify “occupied” and “unoccupied.” George Maciunas coined the word “fluxus” in a lecture at a New York art gallery in 1961 to describe numerous activities and noises occuring simutaneously with an open-ended outcome. Sound like your bathroom in the morning? Another intellectual avenue is “zeitgeist,” colloquial German for “what’s in the air?” Just remember, the W in WHTBOD stands for Witty.
This is a simple yet elegant design. The curve of the hockey stick blade swings out nicely for an easily adjustable pointer. Simply screw the shaft of the blade to your mounting board, leaving enough leeway to position the pointer freely.