A full bathroom remodel is the right decision when the waterproofing has failed, the layout is wrong or the floor is soft. It is the wrong decision when the bathroom is structurally fine and simply looks like 1994. In that case you are paying twelve thousand dollars and three weeks of disruption to change things that could have been changed in three days.
This is the companion to our five-day kitchen refresh, built on the same principle: change every surface people see and touch, change nothing that requires demolition, permits or moving plumbing.
Day one is removal and preparation - out goes the vanity, toilet, mirror, lighting and hardware, and the walls get repaired, patched and primed. We replace the angle stops and supply lines while everything is open, because twenty-year-old shut-off valves are the actual cause of most bathroom floods.
Day two is installation - new vanity shimmed and anchored, new countertop and sink, new faucet, new toilet on a properly repaired flange, new mirror or medicine cabinet, new vanity and ceiling lighting, and a correctly sized exhaust fan ducted to the exterior if yours is inadequate, which it probably is.
Day three is finishing - paint, new shower and tub trim, towel bars and accessories, wet area treatment, sealant at every joint, and a full clean. You get the room back that evening.
If your tile is sound, we regrout, recaulk and seal it and it looks dramatically better. If the tub or tile is dated but intact, professional reglazing changes the colour for a fraction of replacement cost - we will tell you honestly that reglazing is a five to ten year finish, not a permanent one. If the shower is leaking, the tile is loose, or the floor near the shower is soft, this is not the right service and we will tell you that on the first visit rather than after your money is spent. In that case you need our shower and tub replacement or a full remodel, and we would rather move you to it than take an easy job that leaves a problem behind.
You get a written scope, a fixed price and a three day schedule before we start. You either buy the fixtures or we specify them with model numbers to your budget. Powder rooms are often two days. Two bathrooms in the same house can usually be done in five.
Bathrooms and kitchens drive perceived value more than any other room. For a rental turnover, a listing, or a house you plan to stay in for five more years, a three day refresh at a few thousand dollars returns more per dollar spent than almost anything else we do.
Yes, because we deliberately exclude everything that cannot. No plumbing relocation, no tile demolition, no permits, no waiting on inspections. The scope is fixed for exactly that reason. If your bathroom needs any of those things we will tell you before you book, not on day two.
Typically $4,200 to $7,500 depending on the fixtures you choose and whether the wet area is regrouted or reglazed. Powder rooms start lower. You get a fixed price in writing, and if you supply your own vanity and fixtures the labour figure is quoted separately.
It is genuinely useful when the tub is sound but the colour is dated - almond, pink, blue - and replacing it would mean opening tile walls. Be clear-eyed about it: a good reglaze lasts five to ten years with careful cleaning, and it is a finish, not a new tub. We would rather you know that up front than be disappointed in year six.
We stop and show you. The most common finds are a broken closet flange, water damage at the vanity base, or a wall that will not take a fixture. Small items we handle inside the price. Anything structural or water related gets photographed, explained and priced as a documented change before we continue.
If the shower does not leak, the floor is solid, the layout works and you just hate how it looks, refresh - it is roughly a third of the cost and a tenth of the disruption. If any of those four things is not true, a refresh puts new fixtures on top of an unresolved problem, and we will steer you to the right service instead.
