5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Renovating My House + Cost Breakdown

so I just finished renovating the bathroom at my Palm Springs Airbnb and like usual I learned a lot in the process today I'm gonna spill exactly how much I spent on this renovation and things I think you should know before doing any renovation so let's start with the costs involved with this one for context every renovation is more expensive than you think it's gonna be and this was no exception it did end up being a bit more expensive than I expected my estimate was that it would cost about five thousand dollars to renovate this bathroom but here's how much it really costs for everything for all of the demo supplies it was 135.73 the plumbing supplies including a tool that was kind of expensive was 118 the Quikrete Lumber and some other miscellaneous things was 172 dollars the waterproofing supplies 67.4 cents everything to build the shower including the drain was 442.68 junk removal was 160 dollars the Hardy backer tape and mud was 131 the wall tile was about 15 per square foot in total to be 1577 and the floor tile was eight dollars per square foot and that totaled to be 652 dollars the vanity was 813 the pair of sconces were 358 the shower glass was 403 dollars pretty good price for that the mirror was 105 the hardware in the bathroom was 99 total shower head was 146.79 and the faucet for the sink was 98 the Schluter Edge pieces totaled to be about 41 and some other miscellaneous Home Depot and Lowe's trips were around 150 and the tile contractor that I hired to help us was fifteen hundred dollars so that gives us a grand total of six thousand eight hundred and fifty nine dollars to renovate this bathroom which is pretty good and it's very possible on forgetting something it's probably a few hundred dollars more than that if we're being real here if you guys want to know where any of this stuff is from I've linked it all in the description box so the average bathroom renovation is actually 11 290 and I do think if we had hired everything out to do this bathroom it would have been I think about fifteen thousand dollars when you factor in the cost that labor is more expensive in California and we also did some complicated things like building a shower floor dealing with the drain reframing a custom Niche moving the plumbing and hardwiring for sconces so by doing this with the help of my dad I definitely saved a lot of money and it is so much more budget friendly if you do things yourself and this way I could justify spending more on certain materials like the vanity and the wall tiles because I was saving so much on labor but there are a couple things in hindsight I think I could have saved more on the first is there is a floating vanity from Ikea that looks very similar to this one it's the Ikea God Morgan vanity it's only around 500 it's even less if you don't go for the wood look first is the vanity I ended up buying was about 800 worth shipping the Ikea one is a lot more affordable and what's really cool about it is there are several different companies that actually make door fronts for it so if you want to change the look of it a few years later you can buy new door fronts and it will look brand new you can make it Oak you can paint it whatever color so I think that is a really cool option that I would consider for any future bathroom Renovations the only thing is a lot of these companies don't make side panels and that's why I didn't go with it because you do see the sides I just thought it would bother me if the fronts look different than the sides so that's why I personally didn't do that but I think that's a great option and the second is the wall tile the one I picked is pretty expensive and there are a lot of very similar ones that are about half the price I do love this wall tile but it was 15 a square foot and I have seen very similar ones for half of that price for example these outdoor shower power tiles it's that same handmade tile look very similar but they're an inch wider so they are half the cost okay they're actually not half the cost anymore I think the price went up but now it's more like two-thirds the cost and they still look amazing I think if you're more on a budget but you want that same look I would go with these tiles that would have saved me probably seven hundred dollars the skinnier the tile generally the more expensive it's gonna be it's more cost involved with making them and this is a two inch by ten inch tile you can get a three inch by 12 inch it's still going to look amazing in my opinion so those are a couple ways that you can get a very similar look for less and now let's talk about some things that you should know before doing a renovation the first thing I wish I knew before any of these home renovations is that about 60 of the cost of a renovation is going to be on the labor not the materials it can be hard to gauge how much a project will cost but generally I found this to be the case the labor is the most expensive part I think this is a good rule of thumb and people really have no idea the actual cost of labor for these things especially after doing this with my dad I feel like those labor costs are Justified because it is a lot of work even a small bathroom there is so much work that goes into waterproofing everything making sure things are level or sloped downwards things that you don't really see Behind the Walls whatever the cost of the materials that you have double or triple that and that's going to be most likely what the actual cost is of your renovation so if you can do it yourself you're going to save a lot of money but if not that's totally fine too but I would definitely budget appropriately next thing you should know is to make a plan of what you want done while the walls are open when the walls are open is kind of your one chance to move things around so what I personally did is wired for sconces instead of one light and also moved the shower valve on the opposite side of the shower so when you turn it on you don't get sprayed by water water you'd hate to realize that you want that after because then you have to I'd have to take out all that tile again and I'm not doing that you know look on Pinterest take notes I personally recommend putting the shower valve on the opposite side if you have a fixed glass panel because it is just so nice to not have to go in and then run away from the cold water you know what I'm saying you don't have to change anything around of course it is going to be a little bit more expensive but if you do want to definitely think about it because this is the time to do it also keep in mind Outlet placements because this is an easier time to switch those around as well if you'd like I've seen a lot of people do this under vanity lighting that's really cool I actually wired for this but I just haven't installed the light yet so that's a cool idea as well and along with that take photos while the walls are open just snap a few photos on your iPhone I now have photos of where all the pipes are where there's any electrical cords that is kind of nice for the future if I ever I'm screwing into the wall I can refer back to those photos to make sure I'm not going to hit anything next is if you're ordering something online for your renovation try and order it from somewhere that has an in-person store that's easily returnable I did make this mistake on this renovation I ordered a really nice sink top from Wayfair it was three hundred dollars very heavy it was really nice but unfortunately the timing of the custom vanity that I wanted to have built wasn't going to be done in time and the new vanity already had a sink built in so I didn't need this other sink anymore I then had to return that sink I had to pay 50 to return it go to the FedEx store this whole thing so I always try to order stuff from places where they have an in-person store so I don't have to pay to ship it back and it's just easier to return it even Home Depot and Lowe's have a much better selection online so if you don't really love what they have in the store they have a lot more stuff online and then if it doesn't end up working out it is still really easy to return no matter how many times you measure how careful you are there's just always going to be something that doesn't end up working out because plans change you might end up needing something slightly bigger or smaller or it doesn't look the same as it was online this is so common and you will save yourself a lot of headaches if you can return it in person the next thing I wish I knew is there is a tool for anything that you're not strong enough to do when we were demoing the bathroom it was nearly impossible to get some of these tiles off but when I did some research online I found that I just wasn't using the right tool and there's a tool for basically anything if you can't get some tile off the wall you can rent a machine that is basically like a motorized Hammer there really is a tool for anything or in our case just getting a sledgehammer worked way better than the Chisel and Hammer whether you want to do it or not is a whole other thing because it's a lot of work but I think it is nice to know that it is possible to do really no matter your strength because I'm not a strong person even some of the drywall screws were more difficult to put in and required more arm strength but I found a different kind that were easier to put in for people that just aren't as strong and the last thing you really need to know before doing any renovation is it is going to take longer than you think so budget for more time with this bathroom renovation it is tricky because it's an Airbnb so I have to block off the time and I have to get it done in that amount of time and we did go over what I initially expected so I had to block off a little more time which was luckily available the saying is that a renovation is going to take double the time and double the budget for this renovation we were very on schedule until we hired a title contractor once we hired a contractor things really slowed down which is pretty typical the way that a lot of contractors run their businesses is they will take on more projects before they're finished with the last one so that's why they might start just not showing up as often to finish yours when it's a little over halfway done because they've started a new project this is not uncommon if you're doing things yourself you can stay more on schedule I think because you just have more control over it but it does eventually get done and you will be so happy with it probably hopefully I think this is important to know so that you can manage your expectations and not get as frustrated because you kind of know that this is normal and this is kind of how it will be with this bathroom the tile contractor would straight up just lie and tell us oh I'll have everything done tomorrow and it would still not be done like three days later I feel like that honestly is not uncommon so I would just take things with a grain of salt so that is so important to know just to manage your expectations and not get as frustrated and to also be really proactive about making sure that people are showing up and work is getting done this is a small bathroom it's five by eight feet and it still took us four weeks to fully renovate it we weren't working on it full time though I will say there were days where we only put like three hours of work in but it was many many hours of both myself and my dad working on it but we got it done eventually and I think it looks awesome so I hope this video was helpful if you're planning any kind of renovation it really is so different for every project but I hope that the transparency with the costs is helpful be sure to subscribe if you guys haven't yet and give this video a thumbs up and I'll see you in my next video bye

Channel: Shelby Church

Views: 153,499

Keywords: shelby, church, bathroom, renovation, things you need to know, before renovating, mistakes, cost, expenses, materials, wayfair, lowes, home depot

Id: 4Ik10LP9GX8

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023