Bathroom $25,000.000 to $50,000.00
Client Needs
The second floor common area bathroom was the original from 27-years ago. It was dark, the window was falling apart, the décor dated the rest of the house, the room was cold, there wasn’t room for two sinks or enough counter space, and it seemed that it took forever for the water to get hot. The client’s chose to change all of that and start from scratch within the walls of the existing space.
Being active adults, having a tub that was comfortable to soak in and that maintained the water temperature was a priority. Realizing that they would be relaxed from a long soak, grab bars to maintain stable footing without looking like a nursing home needed to be planned for. Improving the natural and incandescent lighting to allow higher contrast in the room while brightening it up was important. Making the bathroom feel larger without adding additional square footage, holding in the heat, providing ample storage, and resolving getting the hot water to the faucets faster were also considerations. Rounding out their list was having high quality tasteful appointments that were not over the top or that made the room feel as if it didn’t fit within the context of the rest of the house.
Before
An underutilized floor to ceiling built in which segmented the room was removed to make space for the double vanity cabinet. The bench beneath the window was replaced with a storage hutch. A full height wall that housed the plumbing for the tub/shower and created the alcove for the toilet was removed and replaced with a half wall and a glass partition, with the plumbing moving to the opposite wall. The balance of the space was stripped to the studs and the joists and the window was replaced in the rough opening. The new double vanity allows more of the things that need to be close at hand to be accommodated in the drawers and base cabinets instead of in the old built in storage cabinet.
To resolve the amount of time that it took for hot water to reach the faucets, separate recirculation pumps were added to the tub/shower and the sinks hot water supplies. To conserve space, the pump in the vanity was installed behind the toe kick and below the bottom of the cabinet with a removable service panel inside the vanity base, and the other pump located between the floor joists behind the apron panel of the new heated bubble massage tub. All of the walls and ceiling were insulated to keep the heat in the room and the supply register moved to allow air to flow across the length of the room.
With new tile, beautiful finishes, and the room opened up, the clients wanted to be able to see more of the new bathroom from the hallway. To accomplish this, a pocket door replaced the hinged door however the relocated plumbing for the tub/shower was also on the wall that the pocket door had to recess into. Rather than building out both sides of the door opening, which would not only make for unusually deep jambs, it would also take away space on the vanity side of the room, it was decided to build the plumbing wall further into the room on the tub side and carry the tile all the way to the ceiling. Unless you are in the business and have an eye for those things, it’s nearly indiscernible that is what occurred to accommodate the pocket door and all of the tub/shower plumbing.
After
The clients knew what costs were from previous projects that they had undertaken, and wanting to have what they wanted, the budget was not to exceed $45,000.00, while also indicating that less than that would be acceptable too. The total cost for this bathroom remodeling project came in slightly below budget objective at $43,305.00.