Close Menu

Everything You Need to Know About Renovating Your Primary Bathroom

And Why TDS Custom Construction is the Best Local Contractor for Your Primary Bathroom Remodel

Ensuite bathroom remodel with brass fixtures, marble tiled shower and bathtub, painted Woodharbor cabinets, marble herringbone floor tile in Maple Bluff, Wisconsin by TDS Custom Construction.

Planning a primary bathroom remodel can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. At TDS, our expert designers and builders can create custom bathroom remodels for clients that fit a range of needs and styles. We pride ourselves on designing and building bathrooms that are durable, environmentally-conscious, and healthy.

Wondering where to start?

Our designers and builders can help you break down the planning process into crucial decision points, tease out what’s most important to you, and identify the factors you may want to consider in planning your project.

In our years of experience working with clients across Dane County and the Madison area, we’ve found that planning a bathroom remodel boils down to a few key questions.

Marble shower with modern brass faucets for this bathroom remodel in Maple Bluff, Wisconsin by TDS Custom Construction.
Marble shower with modern brass faucets for this bathroom remodel in Maple Bluff, Wisconsin by TDS Custom Construction.

What does your dream bathroom look like? Which features should it have?

Thinking through the possibilities for what you want your bathroom remodel or primary bathroom renovation to be is helpful at this stage—and it can be a lot of fun!

How much do you want to spend?

Second, it’s a good idea at this stage to get a handle on how much you might expect to spend on your bathroom renovation. If you have a budget in mind, we’ll give you some tips to consider that may help you keep costs down.

What should you look for when choosing a contractor?

Finally, we’ll talk about how to choose a contractor, and how to know you’ve chosen a design/build team that will work well with you. Read ahead for some tips on what you should consider in planning your bathroom remodel or primary bathroom renovation, and let’s get on to the fun part.

What are some ideas and trends we’re seeing a lot these days?

Privacy is one consideration: if your bathroom is a shared space, one option is to keep the different components of the bathroom separate. If you’re working with a primary suite, for instance, it’s good to have a separate toilet room so someone can still use the toilet while someone else is using the main bathroom.

Another trend we’re seeing is soaking tubs—with the current focus on wellbeing and with everyone spending more time at home, soaking tubs can be a good investment toward health and de-stressing. And we’re seeing a lot of soaking tubs separate from showers, which can also be helpful for shared spaces. Keeping different components separate is space contingent, of course—whether it’s feasible in your particular bathroom depends on the kind of square footage you have to work with – though you can always add an addition!

One other way to drum up ideas for your bathroom remodel is to consider what’s involved in working within the style and space constraints of your home. With remodeling, it can be easy to feel limited by space. Still, with a little creativity, those constraints can be a launching point for inspiration, and they might give you some ideas that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to you. At TDS, we pride ourselves on getting creative about modernizing, no matter what kind of space you’re starting with.

Considering style and sustainability is essential.

We encourage clients to work within the architectural style of the house, to ensure the remodel has a timeless and unified feel. TDS is a sustainably-minded remodeling company, so our goal is to design bathrooms that will last a long time instead of redoing it over and over. We try to find ways to keep a remodel modern and fresh, while keeping the more labor-intensive pieces, such as tile, more timeless. Then, as far as the trends and excitement generating elements, we try to bring in that creativity for parts of the remodel that can be redone quickly—things like changing out faucets, or the color on the walls rather than putting a bunch of tile in a landfill. We are conscious of our planet and its resources and redesign in a way that allows for a modern and exciting feel, but that doesn’t beg to be ripped out in ten years.

How much should you expect to spend on a primary bathroom renovation?

The average primary bathroom remodel can cost in the range of $40,000 to $70,000 and up, depending on the scope of work. As a baseline, a general bathroom remodel starts at $30,000 and goes up from there.

What are some things to consider as you’re budgeting? First things first—you want to think about whether you’ll need to move plumbing to achieve your remodel. Moving plumbing can drastically change the overall cost—sticking to just a facelift will keep your total cost down, but once you start moving things around, that can be a big cost change.

In general, bathrooms tend to be costly to renovate because of the tile work. Tile installation is very labor-intensive and requires skilled installers to be successful. So, of course, the more tile you work into your bathroom remodel, the more the cost will go up—if you have tile on the walls, shower surround, and a tile floor, it will add up.

At TDS we work with a range of budgets, and there are a lot of ways that we can bring the cost down and “value engineer” to keep costs reasonable. It’s important to keep in mind that if you’re trying to stay within a budget, flexibility is crucial, as it gives our designers more room to select affordable design elements.

TDS Team

At TDS we’ve found that most of our customers come from word of mouth. Talk to friends and neighbors about the experiences they have with contractors and neighbors. Online reviews are of course useful as well, but as we all know, it doesn’t often give you the full picture (Yelp, anyone?).

It also helps to find reputable associations and check their listings. We’re part of NARI, the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. NARI Madison is an excellent resource for consumers and has an extensive searchable database of reputable contractors of many types.

Your dream bathroom remodel, right this way.

Ready to get started on your primary bathroom project? Tell us about your project, and Jackie, our Selections Manager, will get in touch with you to get started. Contact Jackie using the form below or at jackie@tdsdesignbuild.com.

Once you’ve narrowed in on a few candidates, a good next step is looking at their websites and finding a contractor who is doing projects that are interesting to you, that resonate with your sense of style and the things you value. Keep in mind, though, that the projects that are featured on a contractor’s website may not be the full range of what they can do since most work is determined by what past clients have specified. When it comes to different styles, TDS can always design to our customers’ taste, so if you have something specific in mind, by all means, don’t feel limited by the projects you see.