Wooo!!! Cat, I am stuck at home because of the snow storm so wandered around here not looking at anything in particular and came upon your thread. I totally agree with you on the shower curtain choice. Regardless of whether I have the money to spare or not, keeping those suckers clean is a nuisance over time. We have a glass shower door that was installed back in 2003 and I can't tell you how much I hate cleaning it. Not that the door is all that dirty, but a shower curtain is way easier, and you can change the look/style whenever you feel like it. Can't do that with a pricey shower door. Anyway, everything looks lovely as usual, including the "prom" dress :-) Love, love those circular tiles, and the floor tiles that look like fabric. Gorgeous. What colour is that again? It looks greyish on my monitor.

Kevin, Can you tell me 2 things about your vanity? What is the open dimensions of the sinks? (width and front to back)? And, what is the width of the under sink cabinet portion (the part directly under the sink). Thanks! I'm planning 2 60" double vanities (for 2 bathrooms) and want to make sure I have right size cabinets and sinks.

Lovely! About the cast iron bathtub, if you ever want to change it out... Cast iron is very hard, but also very brittle. You can seriously just hit it with a sledgehammer a few times and then carry the fragments out the door in drywall buckets. We did this in our last bathroom. I was a chemistry major, so i suggested it to the hubs. He stood in our bathroom with a very large sledgehammer and then took a big swing at the tub. At the last second, i think he doubted that it would really work, and pulled his swing up, overswung and smashed our toilet to smithereens. So that wasn't ideal. But anyway, we regrouped, and the next time he swung, connected with he tub and it worked like magic. I didnt laugh when he smashed the toilet. It was hilarious, but im a good wife and he was realllllly mad. We laugh about it now. Your tub looks very nice. But i just wanted to let you know in case you were still aggravated with the old tub, you have the option of whacking it into shards and removing it that way. A guy who recycles metal was hrilled to come get the buckets of iron.

"How to keep the cost down?" Plumbing fixtures: One of the larger avoidable expenses in a remodel is rerouting plumbing. If you can keep your fixtures where they are, that'll save you a bit. With that written, some fixtures are easy to relocate, some more difficult and more expensive. A toilet can be tough to move, as the floor joists come in to play. If a toilet is moved within the same joist bay, that's a bit easier than having to cut through or head off joists. In general, sinks are easiest to move. Showers and tubs in between. Material choices: You can get decent looking tile and surface treatments for reasonable cost. If you want to "bling it up" you can add accents of more expensive materials. Along that same vein, you can sort of "future proof" the look of the room by not choosing fad materials. Along the same line as the "bling" comment, you can design to an everyday look and use trendy accent pieces to punch up the look of the room. It's easy and inexpensive to repaint a room, or to change towel colors a couple of times a year. It's more expensive and messier to retile. Tile. What pattern? What width grout line? Will the pattern fit in the space that's being tiled in a logical manner? If the "basic pattern" will result in slivers of tile at the end of a course, how to adjust the pattern to get rid of those slivers. Grout type. Grout color. Don;t get stuck having to choose a tile pattern or a grout color the day work begins. Easiest is to have a photo of the pattern you want Show it to the installer. "Can you do this?" Yes? No? Why not? Your other question "...how much research and work I should do on my own?" Research may save you money, dovetailing into your "keeping costs down" goal. The more you know going in, the more planning you do, the less likely that you'll end up with an unbuildable design or detail that doesn't show itself until construction is under way, or the expense and timeline delay ramifications of a change order. Definitely make sure the room fits together. Windows are accessible. Doors and drawers can be opened and closed without knocking in to something else. That your fixture placements meet basic building code requirements. Lighting fixtures are properly located for the appropriate task. Mirror reflection versus windows. Waterproofing. Probably the biggest killer on this website is rotting showers and tub surrounds. You want waterproofing in your shower or tub surround. Least expensive is demo the walls to the studs. Staple 6-mil polyethylene sheeting to the walls and drape the bottom edge of the plastic over the tub or shower pan flange. Cement board then goes over the poly, screwed to the studs. Tile goes on the cement board. More expensive is using a topical membrane. There are several "roll on" or "trowel on" liquid membranes out there like RedGard and Hydroban. There are others, those seem to be the two most commonly used on this forum. There are sheet membranes like Kerdi and Nobel. Again, there are other sheet membranes as well. To use a topical membrane, you'll typically demo to the studs, then screw cement board to the studs, then apply the topical membrane over the cement board and then tile on the membrane. Shower pan: Myriad options. You can used a preformed pan. Some are cast iron, some are plastic/synthetic. You can go deck mud with CPE membrane. Deck mud with topical membrane. Biggest sin there is contractors installing a sheet CPE or CPVC membrane flat on the floor. The membrane itself needs to be sloped. Again, if cost is an issue, you can go with a manufactured shower pan, or a bath tub, and use shower or tub surround panels. No tile. Easy. Reasonable expense. Shower valves? You can spend an easy $1k on a shower valve and the pretty trim kit to go with it. Or you can use a Symmons Temptrol valve. Everything you need for about $100. So...educate yourself. Ask questions. "How will they build the shower walls, from the stud-to-tile?" Make sure they can explain their steps and the rationale behind their materials and methods. So, a few ideas. Good luck!