Every Room in Our House Looked Like Us Except the Bathroom, Until a Sea Turtle Toilet Paper Holder Went Up on the Wall

When Ray and I moved down to Florida six years ago, we did the house the way we'd always wanted a house to look. Light walls, white trim, blue and white in every room, a driftwood mirror in the hall, and a jar of shells on the windowsill that we picked up ourselves.

Our bathroom is small, and it got the same treatment. New paint, new towels, a soap dish shaped like a scallop shell. And then, next to the toilet, a chrome toilet paper stand on the floor. The builder's holder had pulled out of the wall the first month, and I never found one worth putting up in its place.

I wanted a bathroom that was practical and still looked like us. The plain chrome stand was practical, and it had no character at all.

It stayed there for five years, and it BOTHERED me every time I walked in.

This is about what I put up instead: the Esslyn™ Shellback Toilet Paper Holder.

It's a toilet paper holder that's also a sculpture: a sea turtle that holds the roll on a bronze rod in its front flippers, and the rod turns. It goes on the wall at three points with the set in the box. It's resin over a metal frame, hand-painted in an old bronze-and-green finish. The flippers have flexible joints, so I change the roll by lifting the rod out and sliding the new roll on.

It also comes as an octopus, with the roll in a tentacle, or a shark, with the roll in its mouth.

Our bathroom was done, except for the plain toilet paper holder

A small bathroom has about six things in it. The paint, the mirror, the towels, the soap dish, the light, and the toilet paper holder.

Five of ours looked like they belonged to us. The sixth was a chrome stand from the hardware store, and it looked NOTHING like us.

I'd looked, over the years. Every toilet paper holder in every store is the same bar in chrome, brushed nickel or black. They do the job.

They just don't have any character, and a bathroom is the room where you sit looking at the wall next to you with nothing else to do.

A sea turtle, octopus or shark sculpture makes the toilet paper holder nice to look at

My sister-in-law sent me a picture of it in April. She knew I'd been looking for years.

It was a sea turtle in an old bronze-and-green, head up, with the shell texture showing and the roll on a rod between its front flippers, as if it were carrying it.

It comes in three designs. The sea turtle. An octopus, which holds the roll in one of its tentacles. And a shark, which holds it in its mouth. I'm a turtle person. Ray wanted the shark, and Ray doesn't get a vote on bathrooms.

It's the first toilet paper holder I've ever looked at and WANTED, and I'm sixty-three.

It's a decoration, and it's the toilet paper holder, in one piece

This was the part I hadn't understood until it was on the wall.

Everything else in that bathroom was there either to look nice or to be useful. The jar of shells is only for looking at. The chrome stand was only for holding the paper.

There's no separate holder. The turtle holds the roll itself, so the decoration and the holder are one piece. The roll sits on the rod between its flippers, you pull the paper, the rod turns, and the turtle is what you're looking at while you do it.

When a roll runs out, I lift the rod out of the flippers, slide the new roll on and set it back. It takes a few seconds.

So there's nothing extra in the room. The holder I needed anyway is now the nicest thing in there.

It goes with a home inspired by the ocean or by nature

The turtle went with the rest of the house: something from the sea, in a finish that looks like it's been outside for years.

In a home inspired by the ocean or by nature, a sea turtle on the bathroom wall fits right in. In ours, it finished the room.

The bronze-and-green goes with the pale blue walls better than the chrome ever did. Chrome shines at you. This sits there quietly, the way the driftwood mirror does. Ray's mother, who always says our house is very blue, stood in the doorway and said, "Well, that goes with everything."

It would suit a home full of plants and wood just as well, because the old bronze-and-green looks like a garden statue.

It's on the wall, so nothing sits on the floor anymore

The floor stand had been in the way for five years. I had to move it every time I mopped, and I tripped over it more than once. In a bathroom that small, that's space you can't spare.

The turtle went on the wall on a Saturday morning. Ray held it against the wall, marked the three points in pencil, put it up with the set that came in the box, and hung the roll.

The whole thing is on the wall, at three points, and the floor next to the toilet is clear for the first time since we moved in.

It's heavier than it looks, because the inside of it is metal under the resin, and it hasn't moved since.

I see it and use it every day, which is where the value is

What I didn't expect was the part that came after.

The driftwood mirror in the hall, I stopped seeing after a month. The pelican print, I couldn't tell you the last time I looked at it. That happens with decorations. After a while, you stop seeing them.

The turtle is different, because it's where the toilet paper is. I see it and use it every single day, and so does Ray.

To me, that's where the value is. I paid for it once, and I get to enjoy it every day.

Months later I still notice the Esslyn™ Shellback Toilet Paper Holder when I walk in. I've had that bathroom for six years and I can't say that about anything else in it.