Bathroom Remodeling Sticker Shock

I just read an article in the in-flight magazine yesterday about the best home improvement projects. Once again, a good-quality remodel of an out-of-date bathroom was one of the top picks for actually adding realizable value to your home. They also noted that a bad bathroom can torpedo a house on the market. People won't even make an offer. So, it's good to get your bathoom into shape.

The Lazy Bowl Recliner, eh? Now there's something American Standard or Kohler should look into.

What I want to know is why homes don't have urinals? If I ever remodel a bathroom, I'm putting in a urinal!
 
It depends what quality bathroom you want in there. I have just re-done my bathroom here in the UK and prices for hardware were approximately

£300 for a cheap bathroom suite (bath, sink, toilet) prices go up as far as you want to pay but seemed £500 would get a reasonable quality one (without shower cubicle)

£200ish for a reasonable electric shower

£150 - £200 for decent bath and sink taps

Tiles - as much or as little as you want to pay

Flooring - same

I wouldnt have thought $5000 would be unreasonable for someone else to dothe whole lot for you, these things take more time than you imagine. In the end I didnt change the bathroom suite, just the flooring, tiles/ paint, taps and fittings and it took me 3 days of working non stop

$10000 sounds like a lot but if you have a separate shower/ bath and a lot of tiling or choose an expensive suite/ tiles then it might not be
 
If you have time do it yourself, Home Depot has semenars that will teach you anything you need to know. If you don't have the time to do it yourself, a quote from John Belushi is in order:

I guess your really up $h1t creek.
 
Back in the old days when I was a kid to do anything along those lines you had to learn and do as the professionals did .That meant those without the knowledge or skills had to hire people . The world is very different now .At least half of the building materials go to do-it-yourself projects .The material is designed for DIY as are the tools !! Much easier now.And learning ? TV shows , books ,videos, computer programs etc. Of course the usual procedure is to want all the goodies $$$ like the faucet that you don't touch, an infrared sensor sees your hand and turns on the water !! and then come down to reality. You can do it yourself and get a good job at reasonable cost.
 
One hundred dollars for a knife ?!!! I got this one for 9.99 and its just as good.

Ya get what ya pay for. Get some more prices from other contractors. If they are close, then thats the price in your area and not out of line.
 
I don't think 10K is necessarily a bad price. It depends on what has to be done. You need an itemized bill that includes all charges so you can decide what you might want to tackle yourself. I did my own bathroom a few years ago and I saved a lot of money because it didn't require any rewiring or plumbing and the subflooring was intact, but it took me about two years to finish the job. My wife kept warning me to "sleep with one eye open" until I finished it. ;) See, I'm still going around with one eye open...
 
That doesnt sound out of line. I got two estimates to do my small bathroom. Both came in at about 12,500 :eek: That included gutting the whole thing of the old plaster, new everything (tub too). New subfloor, tiles, etc.

I ended up doing alot of it myself, but hired some pros: electrician, plumber, tile guy.

Grand total: $5500, came out great, but it was a pure living hell of a project.
 
I have an 8 year plumbing background.

Redoing an average size bathroom costs nowhere near 10k.

Somewhere between $3k and $5k is more realistic....closer to $3500 is way more like it. You can do a TON of stuff to a bathroom for $3500.
 
SAKguy said:
I have an 8 year plumbing background.

Redoing an average size bathroom costs nowhere near 10k.

Somewhere between $3k and $5k is more realistic....closer to $3500 is way more like it. You can do a TON of stuff to a bathroom for $3500.
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In northern VA you couldn't even get a guy to give you an estimate on a $3500 job - there's so much work nobody wants the small jobs. The values of our houses have doubled in the past 4-5 years so everybody is sitting on a ton of equity they are itching to spend. If you want somebody to do your bathroom you might have to do your kitchen and deck too.
 
mycroftt said:
In northern VA you couldn't even get a guy to give you an estimate on a $3500 job - there's so much work nobody wants the small jobs. The values of our houses have doubled in the past 4-5 years so everybody is sitting on a ton of equity they are itching to spend. If you want somebody to do your bathroom you might have to do your kitchen and deck too.
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It is unbelievable up here. A guy that showed up to do a driveway estimate for me several years ago, showed up in his 911 ... :eek: I knew things were not gonna be purdy.

For the record, I signed up for the $10K job and feel OK with it. The guys that are doing it are a small company, have a good track record and 2 of them live in my neighborhood, so I've got somebody to rage on if things go wrong. The bathroom is the one the kids use, so I can't have it out of commission whilst I wade through 5 or 6 "home boy" weekends.... Snickering .. one of the guys at work just signed up for a $35K bathroom / closet job ... I guess he's got er to spend .....

Razz
 
SAKguy said:
I have an 8 year plumbing background.

Redoing an average size bathroom costs nowhere near 10k.

Somewhere between $3k and $5k is more realistic....closer to $3500 is way more like it. You can do a TON of stuff to a bathroom for $3500.
Click to expand...

Thats only realistic if you are doing all the work yourself. No contractor in my area would even come close to that price! :D
 
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