Bahtroom Remodel: where to start and what should I know?

[Anonymous]

I don't have any experience with remodeling; this will be the first. ISO advice and recommendations. How do I go about finding a good contractor? I presume a bath shop might be a one-stop place to pick up all supplies and get a recommended contractor.
Do you have a contractor you recommend? What should I know and what to avoid? Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have any experience with remodeling; this will be the first. ISO advice and recommendations. How do I go about finding a good contractor? I presume a bath shop might be a one-stop place to pick up all supplies and get a recommended contractor.
Do you have a contractor you recommend? What should I know and what to avoid? Thank you.

If you are married, be sure you have a strong marriage or else prepare for divorce.

That's the #1 most often thing said by contractors when it comes to remodeling a house.

Since you are only doing one room, it won't be quite as bad as long as you have a spare bathroom.

Tack up plastic over hallway to minimize dust if you are removing tile. Contractors do everything for you, but you can still pick out the items you want and they will buy them as part of their bid, or you can pre-buy what you want and then have them bid for labor and minor fittings only.

[Anonymous]

Make sure the shower insect is bigger than you think you will need. It’s amazing how many bottles of shampoo and what not accumulate.

If there’s a specific paint color, you wind up having your heart set on, make sure whoever is doing your bathroom no, you do not want them to substitute a different brand of paint after a lot of thinking about it and testing samples, I landed on the perfect blue color for my bathroom. But the contractor used a different brand and had the paint store look up the translation from one branch to the other. Unfortunately, the color isn’t the same and what they wound up giving me is much more green than I wanted. It’s a small thing, but it bugs me about three times a week even years later.

Make sure you pick everything out ahead of time so that you have everything ready to go when I get to that part of the job. Do not put off picking out towel rods, or toilet paper holders.

If you are doing the floors, put heated floors in. Decide if you can live with a Toto washlet, which is much cheaper than an actual Toto toilet. Look for lots of inspiration photos, and find something that you would like to replicate if that seems like the easiest and safest path for you.

[Anonymous]

Inset, not insect! lol

[Anonymous]

Are you doing a facelift or are you moving walls and electrical? The latter is obviously much harder.

I've done a few different bathrooms and mostly sourced my own stuff, but contractors often have suppliers that don't work with the general public or don't deliver to your house, so it can be easier to let the contractor buy everything. You can still pick it out.

Put a lot of thought into storage and lighting. Where will your towel bars go and is there room there for your actual towels? Where will light switches be? How does the shower door open? Can you clean this space easily? Where will you keep your toiletries?

Put a grab bar in the shower - it needs to be supported by blocks inside the wall, not just screwed in like a shelf.
Put an outlet by the toilet for people who like bidet seats, and an outlet by the sink for electric toothbrushes.

[Anonymous]

Watch. Hover (especially for tiling or wallpaper or placement). Ask questions and do your own research.

Manage your contractor. It's your house/bathroom, not theirs. Contractors are not designers. They may have ideas and suggestions and they may have the best intentions (or not care). They are also not mind readers.
If they are lazy or don't know how to do something they will tell you it's can't be done. Lies! Short of mounting your toilet on the ceiling, space and budget aside, there is very little that cannot be done. It may require time and money.

Dont be afraid to fire your contractor. Our first one disappeared but I wish we had fired him before that.

If you are opening up the walls make sure they are prepped for shower bars and grab bars before they close them up again.

Add more outlets and more storage.

If the bathroom is not a flip or air bnb don't decorate it to appease a future buyer or whatever someone is telling you is fashionable. Make sure it reflects you.
You will get all kinds of advice based on what the masses and magazines do. If you want it, don't do it!
Ceilings dont have to be painted with ceiling paint.
Marble is not the devil.
Medicine cabinets can be useful.
Semi-upscale stores (RH, C&B, PB, WElm) that sell bathroom furniture and fixtures are not necessarily better quality than elsewhere. It might be the same only with a huge markup.

Hold them to their contract.

Have a signed contract.

Ask for credentials and ID for subs. One brought his son to do work. He looked 12. I sent him home. Take your son to work on someone else's project. Not my house.

Make sure you can easily communicate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make sure the shower insect is bigger than you think you will need. It’s amazing how many bottles of shampoo and what not accumulate.

If there’s a specific paint color, you wind up having your heart set on, make sure whoever is doing your bathroom no, you do not want them to substitute a different brand of paint after a lot of thinking about it and testing samples, I landed on the perfect blue color for my bathroom. But the contractor used a different brand and had the paint store look up the translation from one branch to the other. Unfortunately, the color isn’t the same and what they wound up giving me is much more green than I wanted. It’s a small thing, but it bugs me about three times a week even years later.

Make sure you pick everything out ahead of time so that you have everything ready to go when I get to that part of the job. Do not put off picking out towel rods, or toilet paper holders.

If you are doing the floors, put heated floors in. Decide if you can live with a Toto washlet, which is much cheaper than an actual Toto toilet. Look for lots of inspiration photos, and find something that you would like to replicate if that seems like the easiest and safest path for you.

This. A painting contractor did the same to me. I wanted to use an old Benjamin Moore Oriental Silk in a lot of our downstairs and without talking with me, the contractor got Sherwin Williams to mix something similar. It wasn't. It was a harsh yellow and they had done most of my first floor when I saw it. I knew something was off but just thought it was the light. I found the paint buckets and he admitted it. It really sucked.

[Anonymous]

Ask friends and family members for their contractors and whether they were timely, neat and professional. Do workers show up everyday or are they working a few jobs at a time? Be prepared for a lot of decisions. A one stop bathroom place will probably cost more than choosing everything yourself. Moving plumbing lines costs $$$.

[Anonymous]

How big is this bathroom? It might be nice to start with a “smaller” bathroom (like a full size 5x8 guest bath) to get your first experience.

Have you decided what you’d like done? Do you like the layout and want to just upgrade what’s there or do you want or need to move stuff around?

To start, I would visit a lot of showrooms. Go to Fergusons, Tile stores…any place where you can see products. You need to gather a lot of information about what you want and like.

For contractors, IMO there are different types:

Design Build - will provide plans manage it all for you. $$$

Kitchen and Bath shops - they specialize in kitchen and baths. They may or may not use subcontractors and this may or may not be a good thing. $$

Independent Licensed Contractors - these are smaller contractors. Find a good one and this can work well. Some can be very expensive and specialized and others can get the job done right while being reasonably priced. $$$ or $

As for where to find, check everywhere. Checkbook is good. Yelp and Google are mixed bag. Getting friends and neighbors suggestions can be helpful. Just know everyone has different expectations and budgets.

It’s very hard to find out what to budget for. The best way is to find several contractors and have them provide estimates. Be prepared for variations. Each bathroom is different.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s worth reinventing the wheel for a bathroom. It’s fairly common to remodel a bathroom, so I would find 3-4 friends who have remodeled theirs, ask to see them, ask about their experiences, and choose the contractor who gave a hassle free and quality result. I wouldn’t do design/build for a small project like this. Ask for a referral for a designer or, if you know what you want, you can tell the contractor what to do. It’s totally okay to replicate a bathroom from a magazine or a website.

[Anonymous]

If you are going to do a change to the existing bathroom layout, ask your friends if they did a similar change and how that worked with their contractor. (We are in the middle of a reno for us to age in place. We are widening doorways, installing new doors, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make sure the shower insect is bigger than you think you will need. It’s amazing how many bottles of shampoo and what not accumulate.

If there’s a specific paint color, you wind up having your heart set on, make sure whoever is doing your bathroom no, you do not want them to substitute a different brand of paint after a lot of thinking about it and testing samples, I landed on the perfect blue color for my bathroom. But the contractor used a different brand and had the paint store look up the translation from one branch to the other. Unfortunately, the color isn’t the same and what they wound up giving me is much more green than I wanted. It’s a small thing, but it bugs me about three times a week even years later.

Make sure you pick everything out ahead of time so that you have everything ready to go when I get to that part of the job. Do not put off picking out towel rods, or toilet paper holders.

If you are doing the floors, put heated floors in. Decide if you can live with a Toto washlet, which is much cheaper than an actual Toto toilet. Look for lots of inspiration photos, and find something that you would like to replicate if that seems like the easiest and safest path for you.

This. A painting contractor did the same to me. I wanted to use an old Benjamin Moore Oriental Silk in a lot of our downstairs and without talking with me, the contractor got Sherwin Williams to mix something similar. It wasn't. It was a harsh yellow and they had done most of my first floor when I saw it. I knew something was off but just thought it was the light. I found the paint buckets and he admitted it. It really sucked.

Yes! I’d picked out a BM color and they used a SW color without telling me. Then when I saw it on the walls and pointed out it wasn’t quite the same color, they tried to gaslight me about it. Ugh. In fact, next time I will be saying directly in advance that they should not swap out paint brands without getting my specific approval.

Also, I just reread my earlier post and apologize to everyone for all of the typos!

[Anonymous]

Go to YouTube and watch videos on bathroom regrets, disasters and things to keep in mind.
That was truly helpful to learn what to keep in mind and avoid and look out for. Even something no brainer that you'd think couldn't be messed, it can!

If you are copying a design keep in mind the difference in room size, have the same amount of lighting or materials or even the colors may be a better fit for where it is vs where you live.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, all! Very helpful tips and suggestions, bookmarcking as I start my adventure.

[Anonymous]

I've done 3 bathrooms in my house and the kitchen and lots of other little things.

Having a great contractor made everything so so so much easier. We started with a horrible kitchen experience, then found our current guys. His English isn't great, but he communicates, he asks questions. He never leaves a mess. He doesn't cut corners. His attitude is, there's a way to make it happen.

That said, his design sensibilities and space planning ideas are never matching what I want. But he executes what I decide on.

Depending on how big your bathroom is, you might only have 1 person working there for a few weeks. I would get recommendations from your neighborhood, go to their homes to see this person's work, look at it for yourself in terms of is everything to your standard. I find the pricing is not that variable. Small-medium gut job (meaning you rip out tile and flooring) 15k-20k labor, +5k-10k materials.

Then it's a matter of your vision and the specific materials you pick. Come back and ask here questions on that when you get there.