What to Decide Before a Bathroom Remodel, and What Changes Cost
Most of the stress in a bathroom remodel does not come from the work. It comes from decisions that were left open when the crew showed up. A bathroom is a small room with plumbing, electrical, framing, and finish work stacked on top of each other. Once one layer is set, changing the layer under it means undoing what is already done.
This post is about the decisions you need to settle before demolition starts, and what it actually costs you when you change your mind later. Not in dollars we charge, but in what has to be torn out, reordered, or rescheduled.
The decisions that have to be made first
These are the ones that lock everything else in place. If these are still open on day one, the project will drift.
- Layout. Does the toilet, tub, shower, and vanity stay where they are, or do things move? This is the single biggest decision in the whole project.
- Tub or shower. A tub to shower conversion changes drain size, waterproofing, and often framing.
- Shower base type. Tiled floor with a linear or center drain, or an acrylic pan. These are built differently from the subfloor up.
- Vanity size and type. Wall hung versus floor standing changes where the drain and supply lines sit inside the wall.
- Where the valve goes and what brand it is. The valve body gets installed before the wall closes. The trim comes later, but it has to match the valve.
- Lighting and outlet locations. Including whether you want a fan upgrade, heated floor, or a dedicated circuit for anything.
Everything else, tile color, grout color, mirror, paint, towel bar placement, can be decided while work is underway without hurting you.
Why layout is the expensive decision
Moving a toilet is not a matter of sliding it over. The drain is a three inch line running through the floor joists to a stack. Moving it means opening the floor, cutting in new drain, and getting the slope right. In a Michigan home over a basement, that often means working from below, which is cleaner. Over a crawl space or on a slab, it is harder.
Moving a shower drain is the same problem at a smaller size. Moving a vanity is usually the easiest of the three, because supply and drain lines inside a wall have more room to shift.
If you are keeping the layout exactly as it is, you have removed the largest variable in the budget. If you are changing it, decide that first and decide it once.
What older Michigan homes hide behind the wall
A good portion of the housing stock here was built before 1970. That matters for two reasons.
First, drain lines. Cast iron and galvanized are common in older homes. Cast iron that looks fine on the outside can be thin on the inside. Galvanized supply lines are often partly closed with scale. When we open a wall and find either one in poor shape, replacing it is not optional if you want the new bathroom to last.
Second, framing and subfloor. Bathrooms leak slowly. A toilet flange that has been weeping for ten years will have softened the subfloor around it. Old tub surrounds that were never properly waterproofed often have rot in the wall below. You do not know until demolition.
This is the part of the project that cannot be fully decided in advance. What you can do is go in expecting it and keeping room in your budget for it. We will tell you what we find and what it will take before we proceed.
What a change costs after work starts
Here is the practical math. The cost of a change depends on how far down the stack it goes.
Changing a finish item that has not been ordered or installed yet, like paint color or a towel bar, costs nothing. Changing a finish item that has already been ordered costs you a restocking fee and the delay of the new order.
Changing a fixture after rough plumbing is done is a different problem. If you decide you want a different shower valve after the valve is in and the wall is closed, the wall gets opened, the old valve comes out, new copper or PEX gets run, and the wall is rebuilt. Same work, done twice.
Changing the shower base type after the pan is set means tearing out the pan and whatever is tied into it.
Changing the layout after demolition and rough in means undoing drain work. This is the most expensive change there is.
There is also the schedule cost. A bathroom remodel runs on a sequence. Demo, rough plumbing and electrical, inspection, insulation and drywall, tile, paint, fixtures, trim. Every trade is scheduled around the one before it. A change in the middle does not just add its own time. It pushes the next trade to whenever they are next available, and that can be a week or more even if the change itself took a day.
Permits and inspections
In most Michigan municipalities, moving plumbing or adding circuits requires a permit and an inspection before the walls close. That inspection is a fixed point in the schedule. If you make a change that affects rough in after the inspection has passed, you are looking at a second inspection and another wait.
This is another reason to settle layout and valve decisions early. Those are what the inspector is looking at.
How to use this
Before you sign anything, walk the room and answer the six items in the list above. Write them down. If you cannot answer one of them, that is the thing to spend your time on before the project starts, not after.
Decide the structure first. Decide the look second. That order will save you more money than any product choice you make.