Bathroom gut and remodel -- not DIY except sourcing the materials (Autumn 2015)

Remodeled bathroom for our 1940s home

Our small house has only two bathrooms, and they are approximately 5' x 6'. Over the years it's been tough to give the kids a bath or have more than one person brush their teeth at once. We discussed remodeling from the getgo but this bathroom wasn't broke, so we didn't fix it. Until this winter, when cracks in the bathfitter nonsense that encapsulated our walls could no longer be ignored. Rather than embark on a total gut job, my husband wanted to try unearthing the 1940s tub and tile to see what we were dealing with, and maybe get the tub reglazed as a start. We hired a firm that claimed experience removing bathfitters and they got started. Then... they called us upstairs to look at what they had found. I braced myself to see someone else's mildewy, funky tub. What I saw was... nothing.
There was no tub. The old owners must have had the old tub pulled out before the bathfitters were installed. We had been using a tub-shaped glove of plastic to shower and bathe in for the past 6 years. It was bizarre. There was nothing to reglaze. And as the bathfitters came down, so did chunks of our wall. A total gut job was in our future.

After bathfitters were torn off, the bathroom sat like this for months while we got organized

Our understanding was that bathroom remodels cost $15K on average. We don't have expensive tastes and our space is constrained, so we though for sure we'd be average or even on the lower end. $15K became our budget.

Here is the process we went through in our quest for a usable, defunkafied bathroom:

a. Sketched the bathroom with various layouts. We wanted to figure out how to obtain a more workable space than we had before. In the past we struggled with places to stow towels, toilet paper and toiletries in such a cramped space. We hoped to bump out into a closet, so our sketches included amenities like an enclosed toilet for privacy, and a shower separate from the tub. These pipe dreams were culled from years of poring over Houzz images, home improvement magazines, etc.

So many sketches on scraps of paper, toying over ideas

Powerpoint sketch for the contractors

b. Researched online. We discovered that moving fixtures was certain to bump costs way up. Also, many contractors in our area refused to tackle a project under $25K, which was almost double what we were willing to spend. We scrapped the sketch with the bells and whistles, and decided to stick with the same basic footprint. It was disappointing not to get any major gains, but the priority was to get back a functional bathroom.

c. Created a punch list for our must-haves. We listed out each feature and found 1 or 2 products online that had a style and price we would be satisfied with. The list included everything: sink, tub, linen closet, exhaust fan, tile, etc. We summed the possible supplies and felt pretty good about our budget.

List of desired features with options and sample images and product info

d. Short-listed 5 contractors that had good reviews. We relied on Angies List to vet contractors in our area and gravitated to those with images of their work that showed they had experience with the classic, simple style that we liked. We also included a contractor that came highly recommended by our neighbors. We sent them each the punch list.

e. Met with the contractors. This was the strangest part of the process. Three showed up at our house without glancing at the information we sent. One tried to convince us that "everyone in our area" was going with a certain style, which was the opposite of what we'd described. Another said he would not work on a house as old as ours for less than $27K. The neighbor's recommendation did not even come to the house, stating that it wasn't worth his time to bid against 4 other contractors. Thankfully one of the firms had read our specs, asked thoughtful questions, and came back to us with a 3D depiction of our bathroom with its current footprint, plus an aspirational 3D layout (based on a side comment during our meeting about what we'd do if we had our druthers). Unfortunately their basic model's price was the same as the others -- $25K.

Schematic provided by contractor that read our punch list and listened to us

They nailed our initial vision for this space

f. Contemplated DIY or piecemeal alternatives. Sticker shock led us to reassess what this project was worth to us. Our house is small and old and surrounded by tear-down-rebuilds. If we ever sold the house was certain to see a wrecking ball. So we mulled over our options. Could we order a tub etc. and how a plumber install them, then do the tile and drywall ourselves? Could I get some family with experience to help? This was a draining idea, with work and kids and our own skill limitations.

g. Met with the contractor we liked again. They followed up after sending their proposals, and when we told them our budget concerns, they offered to send an engineer out to brainstorm how we might be able to cut costs. During this meeting we tossed around a bunch of ideas, settling on a different entrance to the bathroom that meant less labor, plus we would find and purchase most of the supplies. That brought their bid down to $17K. Good enough.

h. Started gathering supplies. With final measurements we could go ahead and pick out a tub, sink, tile, etc. We hit online sales and checked Habitat Restore just in case (no luck for this project). The room near the bathroom became a storage area for big boxes. Our biggest score was inexpensive reproductions of cement tiles from the 1920s.

Merola reproduction tile found on Home Depot online

i. Worked through kinks during construction. There were some gotchas that came with our old house. For instance, the workers discovered valves for our radiant heat pipes that we had to cover in a way that would not prevent maintenance later. Also, the old window casing was cement that was chipped but had an interesting shape -- should we preserve or cover it? The pedestal sink arrived with a chip in it -- could we find a replacement, quick? Thankfully we had a creative crew with a can-do attitude.

Contractors rehabbed old window frame and cut floor tile to fit recessed shower shelves

A few weeks after the project started, we had a new bathroom. I love DIY for a lot of things, but this was worth outsourcing. The amount of dust from demo alone convinced us we had made the right choice.