Bathroom remodeling in New York City

A bathroom is a small room with every trade in it. Demolition, waterproofing, plumbing, electrical, tiling and fit out all happen inside a few square metres, in an order that cannot be rearranged.

That is why the honest first question is not what it will look like. It is how many days you do not have a bathroom.

The days you lose

In a two bathroom apartment this is an inconvenience. In a one bathroom apartment it is the whole project, and it is worth planning around properly.

We can usually keep the room usable through the early stages and then take it out in one continuous run rather than in stops and starts. What we will not do is promise a number of days before we have seen what is behind the wall, because the answer changes the moment the old tiling comes off.

What is behind the wall

In older buildings the surprise is usually the substrate. Tile fixed directly to plaster, plaster fixed to masonry, and no waterproofing behind any of it, because it was built before the standards existed.

We take it back to something we can waterproof properly, apply a membrane across the wet area, and tile onto that. It is not the visible part of the job and it is the part that decides whether the room is still sound in ten years.

Wet over dry, and what your building says

Buildings often restrict moving a bathroom over a neighbour's dry room, and some prohibit it entirely. Where the rule exists we work to it. Where the rule is unclear we assume the stricter reading and say so, rather than building something that a board can ask you to take out.

What drives the cost

Whether the fittings stay where they are, whether the waterproofing has to be rebuilt from the substrate, the tile you choose and how much cutting it needs, and the hours your building allows. What a bathroom renovation costs in New York City takes each of these in turn, and explains why a small bathroom is not a small job.

Questions people ask