Bathroom Remodel
As a homeowner, you may reach a point where you feel your bathroom needs some freshening up or maybe even a complete overhaul. It’s never easy to make that decision to start a bathroom remodel, much less begin choosing all of the components that will make your new bathroom a worthwhile and wonderful investment. Besides the stress, the decisions, and the construction time, there are so many details in between that need your attention. Don’t stress too much, there are resources that are available to help make the process easier and less demanding on you and your time.
Let’s start with the extent of your bathroom remodel. Are you thinking it’s about time to change out that 60’s or 70’s era pastel, small tile format and install a more modern design in a larger format, or maybe a more contemporary look using a natural stone like marble. Perhaps you want to change out that bath tub for a walk-in shower pan? Or maybe you want to change the entire footprint of your bathroom and finally create that in-home spa with all the luxury amenities that come with it? This is the time to decide on how much of a bathroom remodel you want to start and ultimately finish.
With a partial bathroom remodel, your looking at freshening up the look without getting into extensive construction, like new walls or rearranging plumbing lines. Your demolition task will be to remove the components that you are going to replace, such as tile, toilet, and vanity. Depending on the age, your bathroom walls will be made of a sheet rock or drywall material. When updating a bathroom with a new tile installation, it is best to remove these walls replace them with a tile backer board or plaster cement. You have a wide variety of fixtures and vanity styles to choose from, giving your bathroom remodel that personal finishing touch.
With a complete bathroom remodel, your plan may encompass a complete demolition, where walls, fixtures, vanity, and even the bath tub or shower pan is completely removed. This is an ideal situation where you will have access to the sub-structure of the bathroom, such as the wood framing and water supply and drainage system. This is your opportunity to inspect the interior walls to ensure that the wood structure has not suffered any water damage and for the plumbing pipes to determine if they are adequately supplying and draining water from your bathroom drain and fixtures. You may also be thinking about relocating a toilet, increasing the size of your shower area, or adding dividing walls. Having a completely exposed bathroom opens up these design possibilities.
Your probably thinking, this is a lot to deal with alone? Well, you don’t have to do it alone, you can locate a professional contractor in your area to help you through this arduous, yet rewarding process. A professional contractor will have the experience and knowledge that you will need to ensure that you bathroom remodel is completed on time, on budget, and within the recommended state and local building codes. You can traverse this complex maze of design and supervision yourself, but some people just want to leave it to the professionals.
We tried to break up the process of a bathroom remodel into more digestible pieces. We want you to learn about each process from all of the great resources that we found online, so if you do have to make a decision, your doing so with a much better understanding. We don’t want you to feel as though there are not other options available to you when maneuvering through each step of your bathroom remodel. Jump into a step based upon the extent of your bathroom remodel, where your at in the construction, or revert back if you have question about the quality of work that was used. We actively search for new resources and we keep updating these steps so that you don’t search aimlessly. We are also not the definitive resource on bathroom remodels, there are many communities and forums that we feel are much better, our goal is to be the place where all of these resources are gathered together in one place, for you.
Finally, we want to hear from you about your bathroom remodel. We want to know if we are doing something good or if we helped you in your bathroom remodel. Send us your comments at [email protected].