Yet another bathroom reno thread - the swinging doors archived

I'm ready to embark on our main bathroom renovation, and need to start talking to contractors. I know Jarek comes highly recommended, and I plan to contact him (anyone have a number for him handy?). Who else should I call, and how many estimates should I get?

just had mine redone with summit homecrafters, installed heated floors, loving it

they also made me custom vanity much better price than via stores

via mol i sourced my own tile through newark tile wholesalers

Thanks, new2. The work on their website (http://www.summithomecrafters.com) looks nice. Did you get other estimates before deciding on them?

after renovating may homes I have a good sense, but yes I had three bids, @pvmartinez recommended her contractor to me who was very reasonable but some of the other work in the house he did not want to bid on and I needed someone who could do kitchen, three and a half baths almost simultaneously


he had done some custom work at my previous house as well which I loved

We're in the middle of a bathroom reno with Jarek his number is 908-832-5156. I really like the people he has working with and for him. I wish the timeline was shorter because we don't have another shower but I didn't balk about it in the beginning and he was up front about how long it would take. I just didn't know how hard it would be going to a friends house every other day. The work looks fantastic so far though.

We also got an estimate from Tico's but the estimate was a bit high.

I know someone who had Levesque come over to look at and prep an estimate, but not sure he ever followed through.

http://www.levesquehomes.com/

Jarek has an ad which literally is right below as I type this - 908-832-5156, info@jarekremodeling.com

@MelissaH what is the time frame you were given for your bathroom reno - We have a reno to do and like you only have one shower.

Thanks, MelissaH and apple44, I did end up finding it, and I've left a message.

I just discovered my old thread when I thought we'd be starting our bathroom reno, and it was from July 2011. Clearly I've had some monumental procrastination on this, so I'm hoping to get things started sooner than later lest another year or more passes us by.

@mod 5 1/2 weeks! I don't know if I had pressed in the beginning that time is of the essence if it would have made a difference or not but I never even questioned it. I just assumed (which is a really bad thing to do with a reno) that the shower would be up and running quickly and then rest could be worked around. That's really not the way it works especially if it's being tiled and there is lots of tile around the bathroom. It all has to be done in a certain order and they don't come every day and all day which I kind of expected to happen too. (again another assumption.)

Rick Hoyos did our kitchen and created a powder room out of thin air. Great guy, does great work, and very reasonable.

www.rchomeimprovements.com

MelissaH, I'm curious about how you manage having contractors coming and going at different times on different days. Are you home whenever they come, or do you give them access to your house on their own? I work from home only one day a week, and I'm concerned about managing the comings and goings.

My girlfriend is able to work from 4 days a week during the reno so that's been very helpful. We do have a lockbox on our door (like realtors use) so that if we are not home they can get in. After meeting all the guys I'm pretty comfortable with them coming and going when we're not home.
One thing I want to mention is that they have covered the area from the front door up to the bathroom with some kind of thin board so that they don't harm the floors bringing things in and out. They also clean up every day before they leave. They've vacuumed my stairs so many times I don't ever have to do it!

Thanks, MelissaH. I guess as long as we keep our cats behind closed bedroom doors, that kind of arrangement would work for us as well. Good to know that they're careful and tidy - that's important to me.

Is good to get 3 estimate. Finishing Touches Unlimited did our kitchen and bathroom. www.ftucontractors.com. Good luck.

MelissaH said:

@mod 5 1/2 weeks! I don't know if I had pressed in the beginning that time is of the essence if it would have made a difference or not but I never even questioned it. I just assumed (which is a really bad thing to do with a reno) that the shower would be up and running quickly and then rest could be worked around. That's really not the way it works especially if it's being tiled and there is lots of tile around the bathroom. It all has to be done in a certain order and they don't come every day and all day which I kind of expected to happen too. (again another assumption.)

And keep in mind that it may take longer as sometimes the inspections may further delay the project. During our reno, one of the inspections took well over a week because he inspector was sick that week and we had to wait until the next one as he only did inspections 1 or 2 days per week.

We're in the midst of getting quotes, and one contractor suggested replacing the bathroom window. The window we have in there works fine - opens and closes easily, and has a storm window with screen as per the rest of the windows on the house, but obviously a new window would be more efficient.

I'm still waiting to get clarification on the cost differential, as the quote was overall including the window (vinyl, though we talked about wood, and that's what I prefer), but does anyone think it will look weird to have one "new" window on a house full of old windows (hence my preference for a wood window that looks as close as possible to the original 6 over 1 window if we decide to replace)? This is a front-facing window, so you do see it from the street.

I think it would be odd to have a non matching window and also wonder why you should take on un necessary expense and put yet another thing in the dump when it still has a useful life ...go green (money and environment)

We faced the exact same dilemma. At the end of the day we did not want (in our case) two windows different from the rest. The consensus among contractors was that the window could be changed later without messing up the work in the bathroom so ultimately we decided to not change the window.

jasper said:

We're in the midst of getting quotes, and one contractor suggested replacing the bathroom window. The window we have in there works fine - opens and closes easily, and has a storm window with screen as per the rest of the windows on the house, but obviously a new window would be more efficient.

I'm still waiting to get clarification on the cost differential, as the quote was overall including the window (vinyl, though we talked about wood, and that's what I prefer), but does anyone think it will look weird to have one "new" window on a house full of old windows (hence my preference for a wood window that looks as close as possible to the original 6 over 1 window if we decide to replace)? This is a front-facing window, so you do see it from the street.

We did this when we renovated our bathrooms, we were very specific about the details and making sure the new windows had the same details as the old and we used wood. We also did it because we plan to replace all the windows in our house in the near future. I hated the thought of possibly ruining the walls of a bathroom we spent tons of money to renovate.

One last note, all of our bathrooms windows face our backyard, so it was probably an easier decision to make.

If it faces the front especially, no way. I am not a fan of most vinyl windows, but in a bathroom I could be a little flexible, but certainly not one that faces the street.

Our house has 40 windows; there is no way we will ever plan to replace all the windows. The bathroom reno will include insulating the opened up wall, so I have to think that will help somewhat with the efficiency of keeping the room warm, though obviously the biggest "hole" is the window. But that particular window is not the worst offender when the storm is down, so I'm beginning to think that it's not worth the extra expense.

jasper said:

Our house has 40 windows; there is no way we will ever plan to replace all the windows. The bathroom reno will include insulating the opened up wall, so I have to think that will help somewhat with the efficiency of keeping the room warm, though obviously the biggest "hole" is the window. But that particular window is not the worst offender when the storm is down, so I'm beginning to think that it's not worth the extra expense.

Perhaps installing something like roman shades or plantation shutters could help? Back in Chicago, we had horrible windows in our townhouse; hard to believe, but our current 80+ year old windows may actually be better than the Hurd windows we had. We installed plantation shutters to help insulate the windows and they did make difference.

Thanks, Chicagonative. We have "plantation shutters" now, and while the idea of them is right up my alley, our particular incarnation of them is not. They get all yellow and grimy, and have too much supporting hardware.

I'd like something with a cleaner finish all around. I'm fairly certain ours are some kind of composite, and I would prefer real wood. If anyone has a good source for these, feel free to chime in.

Not sure about plantation shutters but Hunter Douglas has shades that qualify for energy saving tax credits so they must make a difference.

We did a bathroom with Jason Levesque this summer and I'm thrilled. The finishing is great and he stayed on budget which was also very important to us. He was also very tidy and cleaned up well every day.

For plantation shutters, check out smith and noble online. I had custom wood cafe plantation shutters made for the dining room.

1+ Summit homecrafters

We've chosen a contractor, and we're due to start demolition in about a week, so I'm trying to sort out the last few details.

For lighting, I want a pair of single wall sconces, and will likely end up ordering from Rejuvenation ( which I see is now owned by PB/WS). My question has to do with bulbs. I just heard in ShopRite that they will no longer be carrying regular incandescent bulbs., and I'm not a fan of CFLs. I'm leaning towards the Hannah sconce or possibly the Adrian sconce, but the former comes in incandescent or CFL, while the latter takes T10 bulbs, whatever those are. Can I use LED bulbs in an incandescent fixture? If not, what other option do I have?
Currently, our bathroom has no moulding around the ceiling or a baseboard around the floor. Is this worth adding?
Any thoughts on a one-piece toilet such as the Toto Eco Guinevere?

Thanks.

I have the Toto. Like it a lot. Flushes relatively well. It's on the floor at Bath Connection so you can see it up close.

As to molding we put a small crown up in the powder room as we went with capped wainscoting for the bottom 40%. Finished up the room well. For the main bath we used no crown molding as it was all marble, which we stopped six inches from the ceiling to bridge some color across the shower and bath, but we went with hefty marble as a base below.