Small Bathroom Remodel Cost

People often ask me what they should expect as far as a small bathroom remodel cost, so I thought I would pick a design I have completed in the past and highlight different budget items.  So this particular homeowner wanted to update their room in such a way that people wouldn't know if it was a bathroom remodel 2020 or brand new in 5 years.  In order to achieve this we went with a notably contemporary theme but in a nice neutral color palette.  The tile work on the shower walls, floors and tub surround clock in at around $3000 for labor and material (this was to completely gut the place and install new).  The vanity was a custom piece planned out to accommodate small bathroom designs and to fit around the garden tub, so it cost about $2000.

I actually found my inspiration photos on the IKEA website and would love to know what a small bathroom remodel cost that looked like this would be.  I know that a lot of people on here are either contractors or designs, or just homeowners with experience doing small bathroom renovations in their own home, so I figured that people may be able to provide some insight.  As you can see, we want something pretty plain as far as color palette goes, but there would definitely be a lot of tile work involved since we would need the floors, shower, and a focal wall finished.  I anticipate spending most of the budget for our small bathroom remodel on that element but would need to know how much to really expect. 

We are saving up in anticipation of the small bathroom remodel cost that we are going to undertake for our guest bedroom.  This is not a room that will get a ton of traffic so we definitely want to spend under what is considered to be the average bathroom remodel cost.  The room in these photos is what we are using as our inspiration.  Basically, the gist is to use marble look-alike tile throughout the space both on the shower and the floors.  We will reuse our existing white vanities because they are still in good condition and may even try to attempt to install some diy panelling from plans that I found on a budget bathroom remodel guide online.

A small bathroom remodel cost can really be as cheap or as expensive as you want (or make) it.  A lot of people are tearing out tubs and installing walk in showers these days but, honestly, you can definitely do fantastic small bathroom makeovers without taking on a project of that magnitude or price. For this room, we concentrated most of the budget on the shower, but it was still quite cost effective because we simply replaced the tile.  A good tip for making it look like you took on more renovations that you really did is to carry the wall tile to the actual tub as you can see from the photos.  It really does not increase the shower remodel cost by much, but the design impact is quite large. 

I was surprised at how little this small bathroom remodel cost -- I was expecting a bill close to ten thousand dollars but we were able to come in at about half that surprisingly enough.  That bathroom remodel cost probably sounds quite high, but we live in California where it is super expensive to do just about anything to be honest. As you can imagine, most of our budget went to tile (both material and install) as well as a new vanity.  I tried to save money where I could by looking at bargain stores for the style and shopping around on the internet for the vanity.  Taking the extra time to hunt down deals was really what helped me to keep the new bathroom cost in check and not overspend. 

Before we really got into the throws of this diy project, my husband was really harping on the anticipated small bathroom remodel cost.  I knew that in order to be able to install the design that I wanted, that I would have to get creative with out bathroom remodel ideas and try to do as much work ourselves as possible.  I am not going to lie, this was pretty intimidating because we were working in a bathroom.  Redoing a living room or bedroom is a no brainer -- just a matter of paint, furniture, and decorative accents.  With bathroom makeovers you have to deal with much larger (and more costly) elements like showers, vanities, a lot of lighting etc.