I'm strongly considering remodeling my bathroom myself and looking for a little advice. I have a 5ishx7ish bathroom plus tub cutout. I'm looking to remove the tub, tile (cement slab floor), toilet, vanity and mirror/vanity fixture. Tub would be converted to a standup shower that would likely have a fully tiled stall and an installed base. I have done a handful of projects that include some electrical (replacing fixtures), plumbing (garbage disposals and a new sink with pipe extensions) and tiling(backsplash and partial bathroom floor repair) but nothing to this extent. I have a friend who owns a countertop store so I'll likely get a remnant vanity top at cost. I would imagine that I will need to move my tub drain to line up with the base, and have a family member plumber who can help with that. I'm going to go ahead and buy a tile wet saw as if this goes well I'm going to retile my entire lower level. I am working on costs right now. Regardless of the total cost, one of my issues is that I would likely not be able to find someone reputable in my area willing to do a small bathroom job. I brought a contractor (from my town) in for a remodel estimate on my other bathroom a couple of years ago and he did not even bother responding with a quote - these are small money and not worth their effort. I plan on stripping the bath area down to the studs. There is no reason we can't go without this bath for several weeks if not a couple of months. I am a little concerned with how I'll dispose of the vanity/toilet/tub. Any advice/tips from the DIY crew who have taken on a similar project?
I've done many tiling jobs and multiple remodels of various rooms/commercial structures, including bathrooms.
1st, if you have the time and inclination, I strongly recommend that you take on the job. Yeah, it won't be perfect. Yeah, a pro would do a better job. But, for me at least, you'll get tremendous satisfaction every time you walk in that bathroom, pretty much forever. Also, you'll save a lot of money, gain experience, and moot the possibility that you have a contractor issue.
My experience with contractors are that the good ones are worth a high premium. They are out there. They tend to be very busy, and very backlogged. In today's world of banana-republic printed money for everybody, they are getting scarcer.
A good % of contractors, particularly the young ones, are headaches waiting to happen. I won't say anything else about that, other than to do your due diligence before hiring anybody to touch your house.
Regarding your project - don't underestimate the time. There are almost always issues that you can't see when you start. Virtually all are solvable, given time, patience, and, sometimes, funding. If you're thinking 2 weeks, working every day 4-8 hours, then that is probably about right. If you are nights and weekends, then 2 weeks will go by very fast.
With YouTube, you can find a video on virtually anything. If you have a buddy or a relative, great. If you don't, or you want to do it yourself, there is a video for everything. If there's not, DM me and I'll point you in the right direction.
Tiling is awesome. I've tiled a lot. I've done all of it with a 120$ home cheapo wet tile saw. It gets the job done, and with very good results. It's messy. You can rent/buy better saws and tile breakers (no water). Tiling is all about the prep. If the wall/floor is prepped right, and you focus on keeping your trowel at the correct angle when you spread, then it's very difficult to screw up the job. Even my first job looked decent to a non-tile pro. My last job (so far), was on an old, uneven floor and . . . it came out pretty nice.
DM me with any questions, pics, and so on.