No, no. I was thinking cement instead of tile. Just rip the carpet and lenoleum out, pour the cement and walk away. While tile would be nice, what I really am after is getting rid of the carpet ASAP.
No you don’t. The short video that came with my wet saw showed exactly how to use multiple cuts to create a nice arc: Keep feeding the tile in from the same direction, taking parallel cuts to rough out the shape. Once you have a nice stair-step cut, carefully use lateral motions to pretty-up the arc. When I tiled my basement last year, I used the technique to cut four tiles quite nicely to fit around one of the basement poles.
If I had a big job to do again, I would borrow a scoring cutter to do the straight pieces. Even the tile saw got tiresome after the umpteenth straight cut.
I’m supposing you’re kidding here, but if you’re not, you should be. Getting a nice smooth floor with concrete is harder than with tile – this is one of the reasons people use tile, after all. You would still have problems with the toilet, too.
One further caveat with tile that people haven’t mentioned. I don’t know how big your bathroom is, but if it’s big, and the floor has some bounce to it, you might need to beef up the structure, meaning the joists underneath. The bigger the tiles you envision using, the more of an issue this is.
How about using vinyl tiles (adhesive or non-adhesive) rather than ceramic?
FWIW, tiling is not an inherently hard job, but planning helps, and yes, it will take longer than you imagine.
You said there was lineoleum underneath the carpet - is it something you could live with? Or could you go the lineoleum route yourself, instead of tiling, until you were at a point where you could tile? You know, some sort of stopgap where you can get the carpet out and have a viable alternative until you can take some time off to do the tiling right. Anyway, it’s a thought.
About tiling around the toilet…don’t. The hardest and most frustrating part of tiling is cutting tile to fit around things, especially curved things like the tub. Tiling around a toilet would be a pain in the ass, especailly to someone who is not used to cutting tile, and it won’t save you time. It looks bad too. The guy that owned our house before us did this and it just looked wrong, and you could tell when he started to get sick of the whole thing and didn’t fit the tile as well as he should, and ended up with a ton of grout and little tiny tile pieces trying in vain to fill in the space. We re-tiled the whole thing (be glad you don’t have to take out old tile first!) and took the toilet up. It looks much better. If you need to put the toilet back quickly do as others have suggested and grout after the toilet is in.
If you can get a wet tile saw, use it. It will make the job go quicker.
Your other option is to put new linoleum down instead, if the floor had it before it should be easy.
I don’t really have a problem with linoleum per se, although I assume that the stuff under the carpet must be in bad shape and have to be replaced (why else carpet, after all). The main thing is that I have almost a superstition dread of moving the toilet. I get that it is probably not as bad as I think, but I sure would feel a lot better if I had 2 bathrooms. Linoleum sure sounds easier, that’s for sure.
You can always buy a camping toilet (with the seat and the plastic bags) or even a 5-gallon bucket with a lid (only a few bucks). Call it “insurance.” 
My advice (after tiling my bathroom floor and walls):
If you’re OK with linoleum, it will be a lot easier – just rip up the old stuff and lay down the new stuff. I imagine that’s a one-weekend job right there, even with pulling and re-installing the toilet.
If you do want to tile (it will look better and make the house worth more), then I agree, get a tile book – I have Home Depot’s, and it’s OK.
It’s not hard. Laying the tile only needs to be comfortable with the tile saw, and some patience, and the ability to clean the mortar up. However, you’ll need to put down a layer of 1/4" cement board (Hardi-Backer or whatever) above the plywood subfloor, which takes a little more handi-man-ness (and a screw-gun).
Pulling the toilet is not that big a deal, as far as the actual work goes. I don’t remember if the Home Depot tile book goes into toilet replacement, but you should be able to find a how-to on-line.
As far as living without a toilet, there are a couple options: One is just to replace the toilet every Sunday night (you need a new wax ring each time, but they’re only a couple of bucks), and pull it each Saturday morning (on Saturday night hit a restaurant with facilities.) If it’s a house of men only, then you could go for the “#1 in a bucket, #2 at work” option (or some kind of camping seat thing for women). In combination with either of those is the ‘Bake a pie for your neighbors’ gambit to set up an emergency option.
I second the ‘realistically and conservatively estimate the time it will take you, then multiply by three’ theory of how long to plan for.
We used the spacers sticking up, four per corner, and it came out fine. Just remember to keep mortar out of the grout spaces.
And trust me, it will look a lot better once the grout is in.
I have a sister who would agree with you. She remodeled her house and did all the work herself save for the downstairs bathroom. She hired a pro after doing the master bath herself.
While realizing that folks tend to get skeevy about tile-it’s actually easier than you might think. It’s an often requested topic in my adult evening ed classes. Don’t skimp on floor prep, spend time to do a proper layout, run the project one quad at a time, and become comfortable using scorers, nippers, and saws ahead of time (I tell students to buy a box of cheap shite to practice with) and you’ll be fine.
Given the choice, I’d rather do ceramic than sheet goods any day.