Bathroom renovation

[yeahdisney]

Because you are My DIS friends. And I learn many great ideas from here.

it was started during our trip. Gutted and will be rebuilt for future older selves.

It was a horrible dust mess throughout the house when they removed the tub and the blown in insulation fell down. Our guy said he was going to put up plastic to shield the other rooms and he did not. Dust is literally everywhere. Ah well. Still cleaning.

2 weeks for them to make the shower base and then come back to measure the walls. We have iron in our water and we found a local place that installs stain resistant to iron. Wish us luck. Prior only saw this online product in California.

They sledge hammered out the old tile. More dust.

Yesterday I painted the closet. Today I sanded a small place on the ceiling. I will attempt to apply that texture stuff in a small area and I will paint the ceiling today.

I will paint the closet shelves today.

Our guy does not care what you do to lessen his job. His son in law does the electrical. Our friend does the plumbing.

We removed those 2 big old wall mirror prior to us leaving and I prepped the walls to be painted with the 3 steps after that adhesive comes off. The place is still in business where the mirrors came from so they took them back into their garbage .

They think 5 weeks but I bet 6.

Thankfully we have 2 other working bathrooms. And the week we left. DH decided to tile the closet. So out everything had to go! And we had to count the tile to make sure we had enough.
I had gotten a fantastic accident deal on it a year prior.

 

[paradiddle]

I hate renovations. So much dust, so much work to be done. But the end result is always satisfying.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

I envy your patience!
We are in the process of repainting our living room. WHY? Because our TV konked and if we're going to replace it on the wall, we should paint that wall first. My husband started the "job" on Monday which was all prep. I have a "window box" built in a wall above our couch ( extends from the ceiling). That got painted yesterday. Today the first half of the ceiling should get done, tomorrow the wall where the future TV will go.Then furniture will be moved, again(!) and the other half of the room started. I'm internally in a complete stressed, tizzy. I wish I could get my husband to spend 10 hrs a day working on this but it won't happen. I expect it'll be done a few days before Easter.

 

[luisov]

A few months ago, I went through a similar experience. We remodeled our bathroom because we last renovated it over 10 years ago.
I'm not much of a handyman, so in our case, we used the services of a company in our city, Home Remodeling Lafayette. They did everything, from A to Z. It was more expensive this way, but it was easier for us not to think about how to do it.
We expanded the shower area and installed a new glass door. Then, we swapped out the outdated sink and faucet for ones with a more stylish and functional design. Additionally, we installed a new energy-efficient toilet, which saves water and fits better with the overall aesthetic we were aiming for. In the end, we added new LED lights to brighten up the space.
Overall, it cost about $9000. A great investment that I hope will last another 10 years.

 

[Turn the Page]

We are going to remodel both bathrooms this fall. It is desperately needed and we're looking forward to the end result but we are not looking forward to the process.

It's a full gut in one bathroom and new floor and shower in the master bath. The demo on the current master shower will be a bear. The previous owners put river rock on the walls which looks gorgeous but I have no idea how to clean that and they installed a shower drain meant for a tile floor then improperly poured a cement floor down with no waterproof layer underneath which means over time water has seeped through the cement floor to the bathroom below. The contractor can't rip up cement floor and put waterproofing down without ripping out the first few feet of rock wall in any case so it is all going and we are putting simple tile up.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Uggh, that is so much work but you are so smart to be doing this now before you need it. Stinks they didn't put up the barriers, I didn't trust the workers to do it so I did it myself for the basement. Grabbed a bunch of heavy plastic drop cloths and a staple gun from Lowes and did it myself.

So smart to do it early on. My FIL who had lung cancer wanted to return home so much but the Social Worker wouldn't allow it because the home couldn't accommodate him & the saddest part of that is the in-laws totally could have easily afforded to do it but couldn't be bothered. By the time they needed it they were too upset by the Cancer Diagnosis to take it on and then later far too weak to even consider it. FIL would get trapped on the bottom floor due to chemo making him weak and that is where the food is but the shower was upstairs. Right now MIL is in Memory Care Facility because she would stay on the top floor in her room away from the food. If they just made one room bedroom ready and put in a shower on the bottom floor by getting rid of a closet and expanding or moving the washer and dryer when they were younger everyone could have stayed at home much longer. The issue totally has my attention for our next place, bottom floor will be handicapped accessible ready.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We gutted and remodeled all three of our bathrooms in this house between summer of 2020 and winter of 2021. It was nice in the end, but such a pain during...especially when either of the two full baths were under reno. Tile shopping is always my favorite. We'd go into Floor & Decor and I'd lay out large swaths of tile on the floor to make sure the looks worked on a larger scale. We recently had to hire a different guy to come in and do some regrouting and resealing because guy 1 wasn't as much of a tile expert as he claimed to be. That's evidenced in some parts of my blue bathroom's shower. Oh well. It's a pain but so worth it in the end.

 

[_19disnA]

Reputable contractors will do the things they say they will do. It is common practice to put up heavy plastic in doorways to prevent dust from circulating all over the house. If they said they would, you should insist they do that before letting the work continue.

 

[kymom99]

Be sure to change your furnace filter often throughout the process. We just moved into a new home. The filter looked clean but my husband changed it anyway. Turns out it was full of white drywall dust.

 

[Robber Baron]

There's no excuse for a contractor to be unable to control the dust created from a renovation.

With all the current regulations relating to asbestos or lead paint dust abatement, job site control should be a no brainer.

Any reputable contractor should be licensed to do this work.

If your contractor is routinely doing this type of work while not practicing safe install methods sooner or later he will have a big problem.

I've seen situations like you describe, and I've also seen the homeowners require the contractor to pay for a whole house deep clean.

 

[yeahdisney]

I came back to update. I actually didn’t even get any notifications that anyone had added any responses. So hello.
Our guy did actually offer when we got home to pay to have someone come clean our house.
We did just change our filter last week and it indeed have white dust in it.

Now there is a barrier up. And I will have someone come when it is done.

Yesterday the floor was grouted. Had a delay because after the shower pan was installed it really was spongey? when DH stood on it. So they sent another one of the techs in this area here. He had them come back out to fix it.

And stuff had to be removed to allow them to take it out and add more support underneath it.
So they killed a week. The walls should have been installed last Friday now the new date is next week Friday.

Today I primed the wall after the grout dried (He said I had to wait till noon) Tonight I will paint 2 walls. They want to come install the cabinets and lighting and electrical.

Our guy is a farmer too. So if it doesn’t happen now. All comes to a stand still. Which all of us were aware prior.
Tick-tock tick-tock

2 walls painted.

 

[cayennews]

We just had our master bathroom renovated. It was beyond old, I'm talking an avocado green tub. It was very dusty even though they did their best clean up at the end of the day. I am very happy it's over and our bathroom is beautiful. Good luck to you as yours continues.

 

[barkley]

The issue totally has my attention for our next place, bottom floor will be handicapped accessible ready

we used to live in an area where a developer was creating a housing division with the idea that people could 'age up' up into them with small design elements that were not noticable but aided handicapped accessability. it was facinating to see how small decisions in the design could make such a huge difference-making hallways a bit wider to allow for ease in manuvering walkers and wheelchairs into rooms, tweeking plumbing and cabinets in bathrooms to allow for hydrolics under a sink (to lower to wheelchair height), using specific kitchen cabinet pull outs for wheelchair accessability...there is so much available!

one thing we did with primary bathroom reno was to go with a frameless shower door that opens both inward and outward. we've had a couple of occasions where surgical recovery entailed using a shower chair and being able to easily put it in/pull it out has been very helpful.

 

[yeahdisney]

Today the cabinet and counter top. Electrical outlets, new mirrors and new light fixtures were installed.
DH sent me a picture- it looks much better in person.
The stain is now ready for me to pick up for the new base board trim.
I got all the boxes out for recycling.
I probably will sand the new putty I did yesterday and maybe prime those few areas. Then I can paint again. And probably this weekend put everything back in that closet.

We kept the old cabinet drawers with everything in them. We can just transfer them and then recycle them.
Working on ordering the grab bars.

 

[tvguy]

We remodeled two of our bathrooms, kitchen, replaced all interior and exterior doors, ripped out flooring and put in laminate (1600 square feet) and Luxury Vinyl Planking in the bathrooms.
Our contractor did almost everything, and EVERYTHING was sealed off in plastic, so very little dust. He did subcontract some of the texturing and painting, and all the Corian since only an authorized Corian dealer can work with it.
Everything taken out was 35 year old contractors grade and after raising 2 kids and having 5 cats in the house in was due for replacement. Everything we put in was much better quality. It BETTER last at least 35 years with no kids or pets and my wife and I will be 92 then and if it fails, I will hunt down that contractor and complain! My only first hand experience I have is with my parents house, and when I sold it everything still was in new condition after 53 years. Some of the designs were dated, but around here people pay more to get those old designs.

 

[Skippy918]

We remodeled our bathroom in the fall. 6 weeks turned into 4 months. Luckily we have other bathrooms in our house. The dust was everywhere even though they used plastic barriers.

 

[MillauFr]

Sounds like you figured out the difference between a contractor that will charge you $25,000 to gut your bathroom and versus someone who will charge you $75,000 to do so.

 

[yeahdisney]

I remembered you can get a discount thru your contractor so the grab bars have been ordered thru them.

The final bathroom wall has been painted. This morning the baseboard trim was stained. Tomorrow after work it will have it’s topcoat.

I primed the electrical plates and painted them to match the walls. I did not like that WHITE against the color.

This week shower walls will come and then the plumbing.

Since I had paint out. I painted a black bedside table in DD room white this week. And I am going to paint that room next.

I am going to give the contractor all the left over stuff here. Just a few things. He is building a house for and with his son. Bags of gout. Wall putty. Half cement board. Etc.

 

[TCRAIG]

Just finished my primary downstairs bath redo - I waited 10 months for my contractor - the job included removing the fiberglass stand up shower and greatly increasing the space for the new tiled shower, new tile floor, custom cherry cabinet, quartz countertop, cherry front for jacuzzi tub, new toilet, paint, all new Delta champagne fixtures, lights, mirrors, etc. I still need to put up towel bars and artwork- I love it!

 

[Ning Ning]

A few months ago, I went through a similar experience. We remodeled our bathroom because we last renovated it over 10 years ago.
I'm not much of a handyman, so in our case, we used the services of a company in our city, Home Remodeling Lafayette. They did everything, from A to Z. It was more expensive this way, but it was easier for us not to think about how to do it.
We expanded the shower area and installed a new glass door. Then, we swapped out the outdated sink and faucet for ones with a more stylish and functional design. Additionally, we installed a new energy-efficient toilet, which saves water and fits better with the overall aesthetic we were aiming for. In the end, we added new LED lights to brighten up the space.
Overall, it cost about $9000. A great investment that I hope will last another 10 years.

Thank you so much for posting this! I'm in Lafayette and have been wanting to update my bathroom for ages. You have given me a place to start. One question - where did you buy your shower materials? Thanks.