You can pick up the toilet and plunk it down wherever you want. Now, you need to flush the toilet and that waste is going into the same “container” as your sink/shower water. All plumbing, for sanitary reasons, has a specific design. So, moving a toilet involves more than a couple of hours. You don’t want to shower in pee pee. More importantly, addressing the couple of plumbers…they are not moving your toilet without a permit (nor, would you want them too).

whats a lot to someone else might be negligible to you, so i get your question. i had a contractor advise me i shouldnt move a window lower as then i'd have to relocate an outlet. and i'm thinking, really? i'm renovating half my house and you are worried about moving an outlet?

do you know which way the joists go in your bathroom? moving plumbing along a cavity is easier than jumping joists.

The line has been moved, about six feet- now awaiting install of the new toilet pending completion of other work. I have a full basement with the pertinent pipes directly below. Re-configuring the stack pipe was in two stages. Septic, not sewer. Now....awaiting the invoice.

I am interested in hearing from the plumbing contractor perspective.

@JudyG Designs This is one of the best explanations I've ever heard, thank you. I don't like the placement of the toilet in our master (right in front of the door) but I assumed it was like that for a reason. Now I understand. Thanks for your help!

Yes, it is all relative! We are demo-ing our only full bath soon, so I wanted a vanity with drawers in the only half bath. The vanity came and it requires that the drain connection be moved up the wall a few inches to make room for the two drawers in the bottom of the vanity. I call the plumber to come and move the drain connection and they send out someone to spec the job.

He says it is too expensive to move the drain pipe. Just get a different vanity. "No," I tell him, "this will be our only bathroom for weeks, we need drawers." He suggests we cut into the back of the drawers, but that means losing the back half of both drawers! Finally I get him to tell me how expensive "too expensive" will be.

"$300 -$400"

Sheesh! "Can you do it today?" I asked. It turned out they came the next week to do it and and it was the lower estimate.

The countertop guy had told me the counter would be in the previous day and he did not show, so I had to call them back to hook up a three-piece faucet and a vessel sink. I guess they decided that I was happy to pay a lot, and they upped the casual estimate of $175 the first plumber gave for that hook up to $250.

No idea if it will be helpful to anyone else as prices are so dependent on geographic locations, etc. (city = more expensive? Rural = who knows?) But just in case, I thought i would share some figures now that the bill is in. Plumbing chores (from 'just' plumbers, for the record) included removing a section of that big old, cast iron style vent - like 7 inches diameter - and re-routing that portion of the line; moving the toilet six feet to a different wall; new plumbing for re-located vanity sink and new plumbing for shower (about 3 feet from where bathtub lines were). All of this took 3 separate visits and the total cost is about $2000 - wrapped into the invoice from the g.c. which may include some markup. Not cheap, but not horrendous. And.......no toilet facing the doorway.