advice on remodeling bathroom
 

Will need new sink fixture, tiling, and new stand-up shower.

What is the in-thing with tile? Travertine?

Thought about doing the fixture thing and cabinet through Ikea.

Shower, not sure what the options are, but I just might get the standard corner plastic shell.

The fancy glass ones look prohibitively expensive.

any advice?

If you don't want to do a glass shower because it's prohibitively expensive, then so is travertine.

There are some very nice ceramic tiles that look like travertine. If you were coming to my open house, you'd see some.

Regarding the shower, I'd at least get bids on a tile shower with glass enclosure. It makes a HUGE difference in the looks and tile is considered an upgrade. You could also look at cultured marble as an "in-between" as it is generally cheaper than tile. Though when we got bids for our house, the tile guys we used were actually cheaper than the cultured marble.

In short, get bids for all your different options and then decide. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I've got tons of suppliers/subs for you to get bids from if you're interested. The guys that did our tile were actually our flooring company and their prices were fantastic.

The other big thing lately is granite for the countertop, though that might be overkill in your house/neighborhood.

Also, if you're looking for prefab stuff (cabinets, sink, shower, etc.) as well as good prices on tile, etc. check out Seconds and Surplus. They have good prices but you pretty much have to buy it while there as what is in stock changes. We got our front door there for like half price. They have a couple of location in the metroplex. We went to the one downtown.

Nice, way to take a slap at mikes neighborhood.

I'm not getting bids. My dad is doing it.

Never even been there. But from what he has said about his house / neighborhood, it sounds to me that way.

I'd look at Seconds and Surplus for tile, etc. then. If you/your dad are doing the labor yourself, I'd definitely think you could do a tile shower for equal to or not much more than a prefab.

I put in some nice Italian ceramic that look as good or even better than travertine. I would do it myself and use tile rather than a prefab, although i would use a pre-fab pan.

We did travertine on the floor and around the shower room wall. We love it. You can get good travertine for around $3 a square foot and even as low as $2 a square foot. I love the variations and the feel of travertine--but there is some maintenance in it than just ceramic tile. You will need to seal it every year or every other year.

In regards to vanities (instead of cabinets)...you can get some funky and some cool vanities and then put a sink in it and you now have the sink and cabinet space. A place like Costco carries a nice vanities, but you can find them anywhere. Anyway, good luck.

il Padrino's remodeling tip of the day:

When in doubt, go with a dark paneling. Even on the floor.

I've started the remodeling.

Meaning I have started to destroy the bathroom, with no plan on how it is going to be rebuilt.

That's a good start.

I usually do something like this and then start to put it back together. Then, after about a week, my Dad looks at it and tells me everything that I've done wrong. So I get frustrated with him telling me to "look at it" (which is his way of thinking he is helping me rather than actually helping me) to the point that I call somebody and pay them to finish the job.

Not sure what your budget is, but if you do it yourself, or have help from family it is about 25% of the cost. I had people come in and give me bids on my kitchen. They were all in the range of 20-25K. I ended up doing it myself, after watching HGTV for a week, and did the whole thing for about 6K, including all new appliances. We put in tile, tile backspash, cabinets, lighting fitures, etc. We actually got our cabinets from IKEA. They are very easy to install and are pretty nice. The thing about cabinets is unless you get custom they will probably be made out of particle board. That was my worry about buying the IKEA cabinets. We went to Home Depot to see what their prefab caninets were like, and it was the same thing. So I wouldn't worry to much about the quality of the IKEA stuff. As for the shower... I am not sure what you are going to do with the doors, but I would estimate about $400 for the whole thing. Let me know if you have any questions about this stuff. Or if you want to see installed IKEA cabinets in a house. Although I am a geeky accountant.... I have done a lot of handyman stuff.

So, did you do your kitchen plumbing yourself? We're putting in new countertops, sink, and fixtures and the countertop guy said we needed to call a plumber to hook up the sink and the fixtures. Is this something I could do myself (including the butt crack peaking out of low-hanging jeans), or is it best to avoid the hassle and hire a plumber? Would I need a bunch of plumbing tools?

Any advise from a geeky accountant would be greatly appreciated.

The plumbing wasn't hard at all. That was probably the easiest part of the project. We used pvc pipe fittings for the drain/trap. If you go to Home Depot or Lowes they have all sorts of these. You have to cut them to size and it works fine. Hooking up the facet/fixutres is noting more than connecting lines. Make sure you use some plumbers dop to seal the threads. It isn't hard. Let me know if you have more questions.

Thank you Dan, you have given me the courage to go forward. However, I may be cursing your name next week, which, when you think about it, doesn't really mean that much.

We just did this and spent close to 4k I did the ripping out of stuff and the tiling while the contractor did the rest. We gutted the thing as the subfloor needed to be fixed. I came away very happy with the results.

So, are you going to post any pictures or what? Mike or MRD?

I gave up and we are going to contract.

Pussy.

http://www.myfamily.com/shares?aid=_urCUxd0MBnVwD0UJujhFg$$

Here is the finished product... I will have to look at some before pictures but it was pretty bad