Replacing the tub with a properly sloped, waterproofed and tile shower with a properly waterproof window alone should cost half your budget with labor, supplies even with cheaper tiles and no glass door. Your shower alone should be 10 k. My prep dry wall paint walls and trim quotes were over 1k. You should strip your paper and paint yourself to save.

issue is that even budget remodel materials cost the same as upscale materials to install. Using cheaper finishes does not really save you much and using cheaper labor could cost you triple to fix in the long run. 25k is low for a waterproof long lasting bath in most areas in the US unless you are very DIY skilled.

We are replacing the tub with another tub, not a shower. No tile in the shower unless we decide to spend more on a pretty accent, like a tiled niche. Solid surface shower walls should help greatly with waterproofing, but the window is a concern. The shower could be $10k, figuring $1k for a cast iron tub, maybe $500 for fixtures, $1k for a window and maybe $2 or 3k for solid surface walls. Wait, that's only $6k, rounded up.

Note to all -- we are not putting tile in our bathroom, unless we do it as a fancy accent. But there is no tile work in our bathroom. A luxury vinyl floor, sure but those are not extremely expensive.

If I guesstimate the rest of the costs, $1,000 vanity, $1,000 flooring, $1,000 countertop, $1,000 sink/fixture/accessories, $2,000 for walls and door/misc. That puts me at $12,000. Say, $2,000 vanity, $2,000 flooring, $2,000 sink/fixture and $3,000 for walls/doorway and $1,000 for electrical and that puts me at $16,000. I may be underestimating for solid surface but I think there are affordable options out there.

I will do more research into pricing. I don't think these guesstimates are cheap. I can DIY paint but don't want to mess with the wallpaper removal - I'd rather spend money and get a nice finish. I'll have to get some quotes and see where they come in.

What I really need to find is a great solid surface fabricator.

And demo, and dust protection, and debris haul away, and materials delivery, and moisture damage remediation.

Your numbers are about half of where you’ll need to be. Cheap materials doesn’t reduce the labor. The labor is the most expensive part.

Remodeling magazine puts a midrange remodel in my region at $20,000 and an upscale remodel at $60,000. Why would places be reporting mid range remodels if it is not possible to get one? Houzz puts a basic bathroom remodel at $3,000 to $12,000. Their mid-to-upper range is $10,000 to $35,000.

My home and neighborhood are not appropriate for a $$$ remodel, I need to find a quality, mid-range solution.

I think I'm going to need to plan and piece out the work myself, or just work on getting bids from places that seem smaller and less expensive to work with.

[https://www.houzz.com/magazine/bathroom-workbook-how-much-does-a-bathroom-remodel-cost-stsetivw-vs~23875885[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/bathroom-workbook-how-much-does-a-bathroom-remodel-cost-stsetivw-vs~23875885)

Houzz uses self reported data from DIYers in the mix. It skews their numbers tremendously.

Karen, you have $1,500 for sink/fixtures/accessories between the shower/bath $500 and the vanity $1,000. We spent about $2,500 for that, and that was WITHOUT the valves. That was the external trim and pieces, the valves were in the plumbing quote. This was using Delta, and far from the top end of the range. My guess is you are 50-100% underpricing.

Karen, please remember hgtv, houzz and remodel mags are merely advertisers. They purposely try to show lower prices so we falsely think we too can afford to redo our homes, i.e. buy their products. It costs far more in reality with labor costs than the Renovation media leads you to believe. The numbers are skewed to get you to spend!

Thanks for talking to me about it everybody. I canceled two meetings with design-build places but am keeping one meeting with the one I am most interested in. Don't want to waste people's time. I am also researching costs and maybe labor is much more expensive than I am guessing. I have a spreadsheet and have been plugging in what I think are decent costs, and am coming up to about $20k, with $6-8k for labor but those are guesses. I will have to get some estimates to see what real reality looks like.
I know that people re-do bathrooms for not much money. If you look at people who flip houses and who rehab rental properties, they are not doing $30k+ bathrooms, but they are getting inexpensive materials and inexpensive labor.

North Texan did your fixture prices include install or something? Let's say I want to put in a Delta Dryden faucet, roughly $300, and a Kohler Purist shower + valve, say $500, all chrome. I only have one sink and one showerhead. That leaves me $200 for a towel ring, towel bars and TP holder to keep it at $1,000. These are quotes from online sources:

We'll call this Delta Dryden widespread chrome faucet $260.

Here is a Kohler Devonshire shower kit (at $100) this seems really cheap!) and valve. $80. So figure $200 for the shower!!

Round up to $500 for a basic sink faucet and shower trim + valve and that's Delta and Kohler. Of course I need to pay a plumber to install them. Maybe some caulk, etc. But those are very decent prices. Am I missing something? I know I'll add more if I add on something like a hand shower with its own valve and whatnot, but I functionally only really need a shower, and a sink faucet.

All that money and still keeping the tub? If your end game is to raise the value of your home, you want to make that space as luxurious as possible and I might be the only one, but when I see a tub, I dont see luxury. A walk in tile shower on the other hand can be a selling point to your potential buyers.

It's the only tub in our house. My MIL says we should rip it out, but friends and my husband say we have to keep it. This is the main bathroom in a mid-price 4 bedroom house. It's not a luxury house. The other baths are a 1/2 and a basement bathroom with a shower. I want to keep the house marketable so the bathroom is not a drawback and if we ever want to sell, the bathroom should help move the house and not be a turnoff. Whenever I watch House Hunters International, there are these people who really want bathtubs! I don't need one but my tweens still like baths.

Turn off the TV. It’s fiction, and it isn’t doing you any favors at all. It’s skewing your ideas big time.

Hire a K&B designer. Designers have good contacts with reliable contractors and can fast track a project. They also have access to to the trade resources that you don’t get any other way.

I have no idea what it would cost in your region because labor is such a huge variable.

Depending on the age of your house, you might find surprises after the demo and also you might need to upgrade to current Code requirements to pass inspection.

Obviously you can shop around for nice looking quality fixtures but in my own (admitted) limited experience, there are a lot of costs (labor) that I didn't realize were costly until I saw them as line items.

Is there already a vent for the fan? If it's not a simple replacement, factor in cost of someone to do ductwork. I thought I had an easy kitchen vent but turned out to need HVAC to do the ductwork preparation and someone else to install the hood :-) - Just an example of how small items result in surprise labor costs.

Also, since labor is such a significant factor in cost, there are some items that you don't want to skimp on because the marginal cost is low compared to what it would cost to repair or replace down the road. I wouldn't skimp on anything involving bath or shower fixtures (rough or trim) because of the difficulty of replacing as opposed to a faucet which is relatively easy to replace down the road.

I'm no expert but can one install flooring over tile?

I would doubt that a moderately high quality bathroom could be gut remodeled for $12,000 unless one was doing a substantial amount of work oneself because of the high cost of quality labor. And bathrooms are intensive in terms of wanting licensed plumbers and electricians to do the work?

Thanks, I had a quick phone conversation today with a contractor who may be a good fit. I'm meeting with a plumber-contractor on Wed and a cabinet shop-contractor (Omega-Dynasty, I think you'll like that, Sophie!) on Thursday and maybe we'll make a good match with one or the other.

I spoke with a local flooring company about LVT about a month ago for our front hall bath and *they* suggested we could go over our existing (stable/durable) tile. That seems like it would save so much work and hassle vs. tearing out the old floor! I hope it's a viable option, and the LVT is pretty thin so it should not mess up the transitions.

The fan is a new item and needs to be wired and vented through the roof, and that is real, important work! I am looking at Delta faucets/fixtures and agree we want to get nice, decent quality products.

You should post in flooring specifically to ask about installing over tiles as there are some very knowledgeable floor pros. I just raised as a question as I have no flooring expertise.

Karen, my prices for the fixtures were for the trim work only, and installation of those pieces by the plumber and contractor. The valves were included in the plumbing costs of the bid. The sinks rolled into the stone bid, but I added those independently since you listed them. With the valves, my cost was gonna run $2,400 for fixtures and accesories, all Delta Zura. The sinks aren't in that number.

You need at least one tub in the house.