Renovations That Are Worth It - Part 2: Bathrooms

If you are looking to increase the value of your home and the quality of your living with a renovation, the bathroom is a great place to get to work. Last time we talked about kitchens as a great room to get started and this week let's have a little bathroom talk!

Fixtures, layouts and finishes in a bathroom tend to date just as kitchens do. Possibly because these are the rooms with 'permanent' fixtures. In a living room or a bedroom, you might have wallpaper, or a popcorn ceiling to deal with, but not counters, sinks and other fixtures.

Here is a bathroom we updated in our own house. Let's take a look at the before picture.

What we were looking to do here was spend a minimal amount of money and have a big impact on the room. Let's look at some of that datedness of the room. Linoleum floor, the wood coloured cabinets, with two levels, and the medicine cabinet with huge light bulbs. Not seen here is an almond coloured wide tank toilet and bidet that match the counter colour. The pink tile around the jacuzzi tub it a bit out of date too.

The floors needed refreshing and we accomplished that at a minimal cost shopping at Happy Harry's . If that had been all we had done that would have improved the look right there.

But we replaced the toilet, which is much easier that one might think. A toilet can seem like a daunting task, and it can be a little messy. However, all you really have to do is turn of the little tap that's right there, flush, use a bucket and a scoop to get out as much water as you can (the water is clean) and then undo two nuts. Boom, toilet removed! A new toilet and gasket together might run you about $150 dollars, put it all in place and you are done. It's an hour long job maybe.

Removing the vanity was another choice we made and there are many directions to go with that. The plumbing part of that is also not as difficult as one might think and a plumber is an expense we wanted to avoid.

We decided to leave the tub and simply tie the pink tile into the room through other accents as replacing a Jacuzzi tub didn't seem like it would be worth the expense and would not have gotten a good return on the investment.

Obviously we finished the painting, and in the end transformed the room for less than $1000 dollars and a couple evenings of work.

If you are looking to make your current home worth a little more when you decide to list it your bathroom(s) are good places were you can spend $1000-$2000 and raise your potential asking price by $4000-$5000.

Have you done a Bathroom renovation? Share your story in the comments!