STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

erin · Chanel

bathroom renovation q's

Elle · Hermes

Are you guys going to DIY or hire someone? Ours was a complete gut/redo and we moved absolutely everything - our first demo pictures are dated 11/15, and our first completion pictures are dated 1/28. Mr. Elle and his Dad did all the work, and put 2-3 days a week in on it over that time. It was basically completely out of service during the whole thing, because the toilet is one of the very last things to go back in

. If you're hiring someone, it'll go much quicker - I'd see about buying all the fixtures/materials and having them there waiting for the workers though, saves money and you don't have to worry about them calling 'backorder' .....

Have you removed a few of the tiles to see what the wall looks like underneath? I don't know if you have lathe and plaster or drywall, but tile removal can be pretty harsh on both ...

erin · Chanel

no, we are hiring people. neither myself or my husband is handy in the least.

our house is old, so it has horsehair plaster. and we are definitely saving money because my mil has a kitchen and bath place, so we are getting everything at cost.

she claims it might take 3-4 weeks because of needing the walls fixed and a ceiling fan, but i was hoping that was an exaggerated claim.

Elle · Hermes

Hmmm, 3-4 weeks sounds pretty reasonable, but they usually try to overestimate the timeline. Things often get sticky, even moreso the older the house is, and you end up having to trouble shoot. Sometimes there are things you can do to speed up the timeline though - I'd ask if there's anything you could do/prep/have that could make the process easier for everyone.

Fwiw, our exhaust fan took an entire half-day to install, and we were just replacing an existing one .

NCshopper · Hermes

If you hire someone to do it, 3-4 weeks should be just fine. Also, they might be able to keep the toilet in and only take it out when they absolutely have to. That's what we did here, so we were only down to 1 toilet for a day, so it wasn't that bad.

Suasoria · Chanel

NCshopper's experience was like ours. It was our only bathroom at the time, so we started the job on the day our neighbor went on vacation for two weeks - he gave us keys to his house so we had a place to shower! The contractor said to expect 2-3 weeks, but there were some issues along the way so it was closer to 4. And yes, our neighbor still likes us!

Only twice in almost a month were we left without a toilet overnight - otherwise they put it back every day before they left. Most of the time they can leave it, until they work on the flooring, so do ask the contractor to make sure that happens whenever possible. I assume you will want to put in a new one at the end of the project, so it's no tragedy if it's a little worse for wear.