Thursday I signed with a kitchen and bath contractor to remodel my primary bathroom. I started the research phase on this in June, and started contacting recommended companies in July, so It is a massive relief to have finally pulled the trigger to get this show on the road.
(If you’ll recall, I eliminated one of the six prospects
after the “design consultation”, when they gave me
a blind estimate of nearly $40k, without scope of work or line item costs. Another
one went when I showed up at his showroom on a hot Saturday afternoon and he
sat there sipping coffee without offering me so much as tap water. Then gave me
a bid close to $30k. A third was much more custom—and costly—than I wanted, and
a fourth left me to wallow in making all my choices without guidance.)
I will say that with every round of talking with someone, I
learned more about bathrooms and what I actually wanted, so the hours and hours
I spent in showrooms and online were not wasted. By the time I got my choices
down to two companies, I felt that Elegant gave me more bang for the buck than
My; their proposal is a couple of grand under my budget, which gives wiggle
room for changes during construction. (Moreover, My’s total, which was already scraping
my budget line, still left the toilet, vanity light and shower door to source
for myself.)
In the end, Elegant sent me 11 rounds of proposals before I
signed. The designer and the project manager came out on Saturday to do the
final measurements and confirm scope. I’ll know on Wednesday when they can
start work, and then—two weeks later—I’ll have a gleaming new bathroom.
(In addition to a vastly varying spread of cost proposals,
the six companies’ estimates of actual project time ranged from eight days to
six to eight weeks.)
To remind you: this is the current state of my bathroom:
This is the botch job that someone did with the floor tiles:
I’m grateful to have made it to this point and I'm truly looking forward to having a bathroom I actually want to use.
©2025 Bas Bleu
No comments:
Post a Comment