Bathrooms have changed a lot over the last couple of decades. A lot, a lot. A modern bathroom in a newly constructed home is more likely to resemble a luxurious spa, than a closet with a shower and a toilet, like so many built fifteen or twenty years ago. This makes it one of the most popular rooms to remodel, trailing behind only the kitchen. But how do you make your bathroom livable\u2014or sellable\u2014without going broke? Here are three money saving tips that might help!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The single most expensive thing you can do during a bathroom remodel is to open up the walls and rearrange plumbing and electrical wiring. Doing so will easy double, maybe even triple the cost! So if it\u2019s at all possible, leave anything that\u2019s permanently wired (like over-vanity lights and exhaust fans), and anything that\u2019s plumbed (like toilets, tubs, and showers) where they currently are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t upgrade, upsize, replace, or renew. It just means that the new stuff has to hook up to the same pipes and wiring as the old. This does restrict the design possibilities\u2014but not as much as you might think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This works best if you\u2019re hiring a contractor of course, but even if you\u2019re not, it doesn\u2019t hurt to ask around. Often times, when another homeowner remodels a bathroom or kitchen, they wind up with extra materials at the end of the job. That\u2019s because many things, like ceramic tiles and laminate flooring sections, only come in boxes of certain quantities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While you may not be able to redo your entire bathroom floor or wall with the leftovers from another project, a backsplash or an accent line of tile around the room at chair-rail or towel-rack height can add a lot of character for very little cost, possibly even for free!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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