There’s no reason you should be stuck with a bathroom that never left the 70s. Remodeling a bathroom is a great way to add value to your home for a reasonable cost. However, remodeling a bathroom can seem like an intimidating process. Bathroom remodels involve a lot of moving parts, which can make things feel complicated and overwhelming. However, if you are well prepared going into things, your remodel should be a breeze. That said, let’s discuss how to plan for your bathroom remodel.
Being prepared for your bathroom remodel is absolutely essential to the success of the remodel. First of all, you need to have a layout finalized. If you struggle with this, you should hire a designer. After that, you need to focus on making all your selections. This includes everything from lights and fixtures to tile and paint. Next comes install preferences. This means finalizing tile layouts, placement of fixtures, cabinets, and more.
In this article, we will discuss how to be prepared for your bathroom remodel. This will save you and your contractor a significant amount of stress and time. Continue reading to learn more about how to plan for your bathroom remodel.
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Should You Hire a Designer for a Bathroom Remodel?
Hiring a designer is one of the best things you can do for any remodel, especially a bathroom. The most significant time killer on a bathroom remodel is layout uncertainty and unpreparedness. A designer helps ensure that won’t happen.
Hiring a designer is going to help you find the best possible use for your space. Being confident in your layout is going to ensure a smooth process for your contractor. Making layout changes after things are already in process ends up wasting materials, which will cost you valuable time and money.
Once you’ve finalized a layout, your designer is going to help you pick out all your materials. Therefore, the designer will work with you on selecting tile, LVT, paint colors, cabinet design, countertops, light fixtures, hardware, and more.
Designers are very useful for remodels because they eliminate a lot of uncertainty. This will lead to much fewer questions for you as a homeowner and much less stress throughout the entire process. Once your layout and materials are locked down your project is able to move along seamlessly.
What Materials Need to be Selected for a Bathroom Remodel?
It might not seem like it, but there are a lot of things to get selected and ordered for a bathroom remodel. It is important to get as many things ordered early in your remodel process because lead times can be long.
Plumbing
Faucets, bathtubs, shower valves, drains, and shower trim kits are the most common things you need to get finalized for the plumbing portion of your bathroom remodel. You must select these things as soon as possible because they are required for roughing in the plumbing in your bathroom.
An important detail to know is your shower valve and shower trim kit need to be the same brand. For example, if you want a Delta shower head, the shower valve must come from Delta. This is something that most people don’t understand.
Electrical
Next, you need to make decisions on the type of lights, light fixtures, exhaust fans, and other electrical items like heated floors or special plugs. Your contractor needs to have the specification on all these things so they can get them placed in the right spot and run electrical correctly for each item.
Some of the most common selections you need to keep in mind are 4’’ or 6’’ can lights, sconce placement, heated floor, exhaust fan location, and any uncommon outlet placements.
Tile
Tile is one of the most important things to finalize early on because lead times can be long, and it affects how things are framed at the beginning of your project. It’s obvious that you need to pick out tile for your bathroom floor, shower floor, and shower walls. However, there are multiple other items to think about.
Bullnose, pony wall, and shower curb material are details that people often forget. You can use tile, granite, or quartz on the curb and pony wall of your shower. It is important to have that decision made because getting something like quartz for the curb will take more time.
Additionally, you need to make sure you have a bullnose or edge profile picked out. This ensures that you don’t have ugly, raw tile edges showing on the perimeter of your shower.
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Vanity and Cabinets
Ordering or making decisions about your vanity and any cabinets you want is crucial, especially if you are doing custom cabinets. You should meet with your contractor and the cabinet company at the very beginning of your project. Cabinetry can often end up being a bottleneck for a bathroom remodel. Therefore, having design, wood species, door style, size, and placement finalized early on in the process is important for the overall timeframe of your project.
Paint and Stain Colors
Paint is on the backend of the project; however, it is helpful to have the colors you want set in stone early in the process. It is recommended that you work on getting samples of your prospective stain and paint colors, so you can be positive they are what you want. It is much easier to put multiple samples on a scrap piece of wood verse having to sand a refinish something twice if you don’t like it.
Accessory Items
The accessory items include things like toilet paper holders, towel bars, mirrors, and door and cabinet, hardware. The best thing to do is to have all these items ordered so they are ready at the end of the job. Next, it is best to mark exactly where you want all these items placed in blue tape. Doing this makes sure everything is placed in the right spot the first time.
How Long Will a Bathroom Remodel Take?
Depending on the size of your bathroom, a bathroom remodel should take around 4 to 6 weeks. Of course, this all depends on lead times and your level of preparedness. If all items are present on-site and a design is finalized, then your job should move quickly. Keep in mind, special and custom work is going to add to this timeframe. However, on average you should have a pretty new bathroom in just 4-6 weeks.
Final Thoughts
A bathroom remodel may feel like an intimidating and time-consuming process. However, it doesn’t have to be. There are multiple ways to make your bathroom remodel a speedy process. What it all comes down to is being prepared and hiring the right people.
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