It all depends how standard or custom you want to go. I've seen people in here spend as much as 50K for a small bathroom remodel, and at the same time, there was one person in here last winter who boasted that she was able to do a full bath remodel for less than $1500.00, and of course that was all DIY. But even still, that's an extremely modest cost for materials.

I'd steer clear of the "x% of a home's value" trap, since the same size home in 2 different places could cost $200K or $800K. If you're trying to do something nice on a modest budget, I'd use round numbers of $10K for a standard sized bath and $2K for a powder room, including labor. You can achieve that if you're not moving plumbing and just buying standard stuff (no $1000 toilets) for a standard-sized room (40-50 square feet-ish). And consider doing some of the demo yourselves, like stripping wallpaper, and tearing up the vinyl.

i don't figure the costs as a percentage of the homes value. i normally use $10,000 as my average gut remodel cost for a full bath and $5000 for a half, $2,500 for a powder room. no plumbimg moved, but yes, $1000 toilets.

but in my own home under remodel, we are all over the place. the master is around $50, the family (tub/shower combo) is around $10,ooo and the powderroom is around $5000, but that is a totally new space built from a small closet. had the space been there i'd be close to $2000 for the room.

the master is full of custom work and includes stuff like frameless glass, italian tile, and custom cabs...quite a few of them. when i'm doing a rental though (high end corporate rentals) without moving plumbing and staying away from a lot of custom work, i can easily stay in the first budgets i posted.

Does this vary by locale? We are in the 'burbs of DC.

Tomorrow we are getting an estimate from a company that did some good work for us before and does all kinds of work from handyman to major remodels/renovations. They are considered very reliable, very high quality but a bit pricey.

Yes, I took down wallpaper (border) myself and I can see taking out a toilet or pulling up some vilyn tile squares. And DH and I would love to take a drywall saw to those stupid "light box" soffits.

Naturally it will vary by locale because labor costs vary. But if you use the ballpark #s, you're talking $10K for each of the full bathrooms and $2K for the powder room, so $22K total. Depending on your choice of materials, you could easily run it up to $30K. See if you can have them break out the labor and materials, and then you can decide whether you're willing/able to trim down your choices on the materials side.

We're renovating a 5'x8' bath in Sacramento and just got our 4th quote today, $16,500. It's a 1950's original bathroom with metal "tile" for wainscoting, imagine the rust stains. We're moving the location of the tub/shower which requires a change to a window. We have some water damage so will gut the whole thing. We're moving the doorway a little and stealing some space from the hall for a between-the-studs cabinet. That will need to be custom so the vanity will be custom too so that they match. We have quotes for $15,000 - $27,000. No fancy fixtures or finishes. Folks on this site kept saying $10,000 and I had that in mind but we just couldn't seem to get there. We cut some luxeries like the solid surface shower surround and the WhisperWarm fan. We're using tile and I'll keep cleaning grout. I'll keep my little ceramic heater for the winter. I think we will go with today's $16,500 because they say they will complete in under 2 weeks, an important detail when you only have one bathroom in the house.

A couple of friends here in the DC area thought our first quote of $30K was actually rather low for replacing fixtures, vanities, flooring, tiling, lights, fans. We chose mid-range products -- riato tile from Lowe's Swanstone bath walls, Cadet 3 Space Saver ADA toilets.

If any DC area folks have contractors to recommend offline (email through member page) I'd be glad to hear of them.

you can get a better idea bu doing some quick math in your head. pick your main tiles and multiply by the sq ft. then add $10 sq ft for install if its stone...$8 if its ceramic. high end tubs are about $4000 (can be more ot less but thats a good quickie figure). a nice smaller jacuzzi tub built in can be had for $1000. fixtures...start with a quickie figure of a grand and the same for a good toilet. then it becomes an issue of how much you want to spend on your vanities, $2500 for two basics from costco with a little left for towel bars...or you can spend $20,000 on custom....

i've done several nice but basic bathrooms with no fixture movement for 10 grand, not diy...but you have to learn to love subway tile in white :)

For most renovation projects I would recommend using the standard cost estimates. I can't remember where I read it, but it seemed reasonable to me --- so this is what I use as a first blush cost guess.

Take the Cost per square foot of your home and that should be the cost of the average renovation per square foot for your home. Master Bathrooms and Kitchens are always going to demand higher costs so you should multiply your cost per square foot by 1.5 and rooms with fewer needs should have a cost multiplier of 0.5.

In short, for the sake of easy math. Let's suppose you have a 2,000 square foot home that is worth $200,000. This is an average price per foot of $100. Your living room and bedrooms would have a renovation cost of $50 per square foot and Bathrooms and kitchens would have $150 per square foot renovation cost.

Note: This covers cost of materials only; to ensure you don't go too high-end for your house. To have a contractor do this for you you should double the final cost of materials.

While this isn't a perfect science, I've always found this to be a good place to start -- reduces the sticker shock when contractors come in.

Hi there - I'm from the DC burbs as well and my bathroom quotes were crazy - for a smallish master bath with no tub and without moving any plumbing (I kept the basic layout the same) I was quoted $50K, $40K, $35K, $30K. I finally found someone who came well recommended but did this type of work on evenings and weekends. It took him 4 months to finish, but I "only" spent $21K. So when I hear $10K as an average cost I have to laugh - at least that doesn't apply in the DC area....

I am from Los Angeles and am just completing a renovation of a small bathroom. It'll come in at 20k with me doing the demo --- and I had to scramble to get that pricing. Figures we'd be double the rest of country. :(

Yikes, MCU! I'm awaiting an estimate from Case Design right now (they were here yesterday). Should I be shaking in my boots?

I didn't get a quote from Case - the $50K quote was from Welsh Remodeling and the guy tried to convince me that it was a normal cost for a bathroom and that I'd definitely get it all back in resale - I'm pretty sure I was getting quoted the "just a stupid woman" pricing... That said, about 5 years ago when I renovated a smaller hall bathroom with a standard HD vanity, solid surface counter (from expo), basic HD toilet & tub/shower combo, with standard 4x4 white tiles I only paid around $10K. So it depends on what you are looking to do. Good luck!

Shoot, I'm still WAITING for my estimates to come in! I have a 6x10 master bath that I will be gutting down to the studs (I have to check on renting a dumpster today), keeping the toilet and window in the same place, moving the door, adding all new flooring, fixtures, drywall (greenboard, actually), tile, frameless glass shower that will also enclose the tub (only way to fit a separate tub/shower in there), I'm just so bummed that the estimate's going to be so far outside what I can afford that it will never happen...

Sorry, but these estimates are all over the map because, like life generally and as Bill said at the outset, need (spelled W A N T) dictates price. High-end, low-end, midfield, geography, etc. My Dallas master will cost nearly $40,000 but I admittedly went high-end -- entailed converting a bath to a walk-in Kerdied shower, frameless glass door with Showerguard, high end tile and fixtures, wall-hung Duravit toilet and an Italian wall mount sink, heated floor, switch to a tankless heater, some custom built-ins, scavaging an adjacent closet to enlarge the space, moving pipes and wires and etc.

Spent $16,000 on fun materials, and $23,000 labor. On a 7' x 8' room (plus 3' x 5' shower) in a 1000 sq ft $200,000 house. And its what I needed, er ... W A N T E D!

We gutted to the studs and joists and spent a total of about $25k, evenly split between materials and labor. I very carefully shopped the materials and utilized every discount I could find spending HOURS shopping online. I was maintaining a spreadsheet of what I saved vs. just ordering it from the plumbing supply store and it was approaching the 50% mark.

Our bathroom is huge (compared to this modest 1900 sf house that is) and I did indulge in a few splurges here and there while trying to balance the budget by cheaping out elsewhere. It's approximately 10x11, we moved plumbing around including adding a second sink where there was none. We spent about $4k on the plumber (including running brand new supply lines from the basement and cutting old galvanized pipe out of the loop - that was about 1/4 of the price), $3k on the tile guy and $6k on the "everything else from demo to reconstruction" guy (ostensibly the carpenter but I call him the GC since he really has stepped up to do whatever needs to be done). My BIL is an electrician and did all of the electrical for us. All of those numbers are rounded up to the nearest thousand and are a few hundred below what I quoted. I was planning to do the tile myself but then I went and got myself knocked up so that's an "over budget" item.

I wouldn't say that our bathroom is high end but being so large, there is just a lot of everything. There are some things that are high end but others are not. All in all an odd mix if you know the price of things.

$10K - I wish! We are in the middle of a full bath remodel of a very small bath with tub/shower combo. Nothing moved, nothing crazy as far as materials. Gutted to studs, but ceiling and window remained. No special tile inserts, designs, etc. 30" cherry vanity, granite top, porcelain tile on floor and shower wall. Total cost with materials (which I shopped around for) will be about $15K. This is in Boston metro area.