A bathroom remodel is second only to the kitchen remodel in terms of popularity among homeowners across the globe. And a great bathroom is second only to a great kitchen in terms of many homebuyer’s wants lists.
Sometimes, when preparing to sell a home the bathroom space needs more than a few decor tweaks to bring it up to scratch; it needs at least a partial remodel.
On average, such a project offers a good return on a home owner’s investment and simply the fact that they now have a bathroom that both looks and functions better is worth every penny spent to most people who decide to undertake such a project. Especially if it makes the difference between selling their home for the right price or settling for an under par sale.
There are also people however, who feel fairly confident in their DIY skills, and decide to forgo the services of a bathroom remodelling contractor and try to save money on a bathroom remodelling project by doing all the work themselves.
In theory it is a tempting idea. Bathroom remodels – even partial ones – are not cheap, and saving money on labor can really reduce the overall cost.
However before you decide to remodel your bathroom alone and unaided by a professional, there are a number of things that you need to think about very carefully. Let’s consider the bathroom remodel step by step:
Ripping out Old Fixtures and Fittings
Are you really sure you know how to successful ‘unplumb’ a bathroom sink, bath tub or toilet? Without flooding the entire house that is. In addition do you have any idea where you are actually going to dispose of them? Heavy bathroom fixtures are not really the kind of thing that the garbage man is going to be very happy about taking away with the weekly household trash.
Installing New Fixtures
Once the old fixtures are gone, their replacements are going to have do go in as soon as possible.
But should you do that before or after you try to lay the new flooring? What if you cannot get everything working again? Plumbing might look easy in those instructional videos but that is actually a long way from the real truth. And life without a working toilet in the house really, really sucks.
Finding the Time
Even if some of your DIY skills are indeed above average, do you actually have the time to do a bathroom remodel by yourself? Life without a living room, even a kitchen, while they are being remodeled is fairly manageable but life without a bathroom? Not so much.
The simple fact is that the average full bathroom remodel requires the services of a plumber, an electrician, a flooring installation professional, a builder and potentially many others. It is the rare homeowner who actually possesses all of these skills to the degree required for a bathroom remodel to be successful.
Hiring Bathroom Remodeling Contractors
So if you do (sensibly) decide that it is, after all, a good idea to look for a remodeling company or general contractor to execute you bathroom remodeling plans how do you choose between the many companies out there who are vying for such business?
You could ask friends, family and/or colleagues – or your Realtor – if they have any recommendations or use one of those online services that vet contractors before recommending them and matching them with possible customers. Once you do have a few names get at least three estimates and consider them all carefully before making a decision.
You also need to find just what kind of bathroom remodeling a company is experienced in. A general contractor may technically be really good at plumbing in bathroom fixtures and laying floors but a specialist remodeling contractor may have more design experience, something that is very important if you are going to get the beautiful, home value upping bathroom you really want.