Renovating your bathroom is a unique opportunity to revitalize your home, increase its resale value, and especially improve the lifestyle quality of all the inhabitants. However, it’s also an expensive project with a lot of complex tasks, and with so much room for error. This is why it’s quintessential that you know exactly what you’re doing. Now, there are a couple of necessary tips that you need to know before you embark on this journey, and here are five of them.
1. Fixtures stay where they were
The first thing you need to do is focus on the current fixtures. Moving them does not mean replacing them. If you want to relocate a toilet, you need to change the plumbing which is definitely not inexpensive. The majority of plumbing goes through the walls (which means breaking walls) or through the floor (which means smashing your expensive tiles). Even more importantly, this is not something that can be done by a layman. Instead, you want to look for a professional plumber. So, unless moving fixtures is absolutely necessary (which it almost never is) it’s better to leave them in their place.
2. Do your budget
Another thing you need to do is consult your budget. Keep in mind that major bathroom remodeling is one of the most expensive home improvement projects. However, not every bathroom renovation is major. If you don’t plan to do much about the flooring and if replacing all the fixtures is not a priority, chances are that you can easily do this on a budget.
Also, as we’ve mentioned, breaking tiles and replacing them with new ones will drastically offset your estimates and it may make it more difficult for you to come up with a more accurate estimate. So, you might want to go for a three-point estimate here. Here, you take the P (pessimistic), O (optimistic), and L (likely) outcomes and compare them to one another. This is especially important if you plan to increase the home’s resale value. You see, even the best appraiser has its limitations if your bathroom is not in the optimal state.
3. Plan for the future
Another thing you need to worry about is the improvements that are bound to create returns over time. For instance, switching to low-flow fixtures (shower, faucet, toilet) may seem like an expensive investment now but is likely to return quite a bit over the course of time. Moreover, they reduce your home’s ecological impact, so if this is something important to you, you should definitely use it as a deciding factor.
One more amazing idea is to install a bidet in your bathroom. This is not only more hygienic and healthier but it also reduces your use of toilet paper by quite a margin. Now, a couple of years back, we’ve seen what a toilet paper shortage looks like. With that in mind, it’s worth stressing out that a bidet can also make you far more self-reliant. All in all, it’s a worthwhile investment no matter how you choose to look at it.
4. Mirrors are important
One thing you should keep in mind when redesigning a bathroom is the fact that mirrors serve several different purposes. Other than just being customary for the bathroom, they’re a functional item that helps you perform various bathroom-related tasks like shaving, flossing, applying make-up, etc. Due to their high reflectiveness, they also boost the intensity of illumination in the room.
You see, bathroom mirrors are either tiny or somewhere high up so that there’s no clear view from the outside. Privacy and abundance of light don’t usually go hand in hand, which is why mirrors are so brilliant. When strategically placed, the right mirror can make a world of difference.
5. Think about the details
Getting lost in major expenses is so easy. After all, installing a new tub will cost more than all your cabinetry, slip-resistant mats, and countertops combined. However, does this means that the latter three item categories are not important? Of course not! You need to think about everything and you need to plan and prepare for every single one of these expenses. With that in mind, you need to assume a holistic approach to your bathroom design. Sure, you don’t have to do everything at the same time but skipping something temporarily sometimes turns out to mean skipping it indefinitely.
Wrap Up
The last thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that this is not something you’ll do on a yearly basis. It’s not even something you’ll do every 5 or 10 years. This is why there’s no such thing as taking too much time for planning. Making a decision that you’ll regret is a possibility if you’re not very careful. So, put everything on paper, sleep on it a bit, and, most importantly, consult professionals or at least people with enough experience.
