So everybody knows that the most expensive rooms in a house are the kitchen and the bathrooms. There are a lot of things involved in these rooms and it’s incredibly easy to see those dollar signs flying out the window a little faster than you had hoped.
Farmer and I have 4 bathrooms in our house. It’s too many. I actually only wanted three, but after drawing out our property and our house we just couldn’t determine which bathroom it would work to eliminate. And so it went …
Without going into the whole back story all over again, Farmer and I moved into this house with 1 working bathroom and no money left. Before you stop reading because you think I am crazy, let me tell you that we planned it that way on purpose. We built as soon as we had enough money to get the necessities. We planned to finish the house while we lived in it. And we planned on doing it very slowly as the cash came in so we wouldn’t have to take out a loan. Not taking out a mortgage loan for our 4,000 square foot house saved us around $250,000 in interest which would have been paid for the rest of our lives. Yes, it’s totally worth living in a construction zone for 2 or 3 years in my opinion.
When we moved in, having one bathroom was no big deal. All of our kids are young so sharing was not an issue. Plus we homeschool so there was no rush of needing to shower and all get ready at the same time. But after several months of that, we decided it was time to finish one more bathroom so that the kids could share one and Farmer and I could have our own.
Because of the way we did things, both the first and second bathroom that we finished in our new house were done in a semi-temporary and cheap way. What I mean by that is that we wanted to get the bathrooms finished so they were usable, we wanted them to look nice, but we didn’t want to spend the big bucks on these two bathrooms while we were just trying to get into the house. Then later on, we would finish the other two bathrooms exactly how we wanted them. And once the entire house was finished, we could go back and look at redoing a few things in the first two bathrooms if we wanted to. Semi-temporary with the option to be permanent haha. How is that for confusing?
So today I want to tell you realistically how cheap you can build a bathroom for. I will not be including all of the framing, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. I will just be going through all of the finishes from drywall on.
I have two very different style bathrooms to show you realistically how much it costs to finish a bathroom if you are trying to do it cheap but nice looking.
Bathroom #1:
This bathroom was finished (minus the trim as you can see) right close to the time we moved in. It has been used A LOT over the past year between all six people in my family, plus visitors, and workers on the house.
It is 6′ x 8′ plus has a shower enclosure that is 4′ x 3.5′, which is a total of 62 sq ft.
THE FLOOR
For the flooring we needed to cover the sub floor with thin set and cement board. Then another layer of thin set went down with the tile. Followed by grout and a sealer.
We used tile clips to set the tiles straight, plus a wet saw for the tile, a mixer attachment for the grout, a trowel, a float, a few sponges, a bucket, and screws. We also needed a vent cover for our HVAC hole.
We purchased most of the supplies from Lowe’s, borrowed the tile saw, and got the tile on clearance for really cheap.
Floor: $177
THE SHOWER
We chose to use a pre-made tile ready shower pan from Tile EZ for this shower, so we didn’t have to make our own and risk it leaking. It came with all the drain pieces included.
Then we used counter top linoleum for the three shower walls. We used a utility knife to cut it and liquid nails to attach it. We also put a layer of waterproofing on the walls before attaching the linoleum. We needed a paint roller, brush, and paint holder to do that. We put tile on the base of the shower, which required more thin set and grout. Then we needed caulk to go around all the seams.
We purchased a shower head and handle to finish it off.
Again, we purchased most of the supplies from Lowe’s, the linoleum was from Cost Less Carpet, but this time the tile was not on clearance.
Entire shower enclosure: $1,412
THE VANITY
For the vanity in this bathroom we used a baby changing table that a friend had given us. Yay for free! It actually looks really good in there I think, but I need to get some baskets so the open shelving doesn’t look so cluttered.
We purchased a vessel sink on clearance, a faucet, and all the plumbing supplies to hook it up from Lowe’s.
Vanity: $0 (plumbing supplies included with toilet below)
THE TOILET
We purchased a toilet on clearance, and all the plumbing supplies to hook it up from Lowe’s.
Toilet and all plumbing supplies for vanity: $215
THE FINISH ELECTRICAL
We purchased a wall light for above the vanity, and a bathroom fan both from Lowe’s. There is also a can light in the shower nook, but I am not including that since all the can lights went in with the electrical.
Finish electrical: $78
THE EXTRAS
We used a mirror that I had purchased years ago and brought with us from the old house. We bought a towel rack and toilet paper holder from Lowe’s. I used a garbage can that I already had.
We purchased a shower curtain, rod, and rug from Fred Meyer.
Extras:$51
THE TRIM
We haven’t actually put on the trim, but I have priced it out. We will use plain white 1″ x 5″ trim around the base of the room and the door.
Trim: $36
We saved money in this bathroom by doing all the labor ourselves, purchasing tile, toilet, and sink on clearance, borrowing the tile saw, and using a few things we already had like the vanity, mirror, and garbage can.
Grand total: $1,969
I’ll be doing the second bathroom in a separate article, which I will link to here when I get it posted.
If you shop hard and are willing to do the work yourself, you can finish a bathroom for a pretty reasonable price. On the flip side, if you purchase high end finishes and hire someone to do everything for you, the same bathroom will cost you more than double. The tile in this bathroom alone would have cost us around $1,000 in labor. It would have been a few hundred more to have the plumber come out and hook everything up. And another $500-$1000 to have a handy man set in the vanity, hang the mirror, put on the trim, etc.
How much did your bathroom cost to finish?
~Farmer’s Wife
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Brittany says
Vanity and sink counter from the restore, needed paint and cleaning, new shower walls and tub and faucets, some professional plumbing, new toilet, light fixtures (one 2nd hand one clearance), vinyl floor off the roll…
Biggest expense was the tub shower and its plumbing…
We’re at about 1500 without the plumbers. This is a rehab though so if it was new construction and plumbed properly without leaking I would not have incured the extra 850 that work cost. We did everything but that ourselves.
Michelle Holmstrom says
We remodeled our 8’x8′ bathroom for $2800 ourselves. We put in a double vanity so kids could wash up faster (we have 5 kids) and a bathtub where there was only a shower before. Most items were new, but I shopped around for deals. We owned all tools necessary. We replaced the old wall heater with in-floor heating, so nice! New wiring, lights/fan, trim, shelving, and beadboard on walls.
The kids all helped with demo. That was the longest part! As we do projects now, it’s always in the back of my mind… How hard is this to change later?