A Bathroom Built to Stay Dry.

We give you a fixed price at the free in-home consultation, not a range over the phone.

Two bathrooms that look identical can be twenty thousand dollars apart depending on what is under the floor. What moves the number:

• Whether anything moves. Keeping the toilet and shower near their existing drains avoids the priciest work in the room.
• Slab or raised foundation. Moving a drain means the crawlspace, or cutting concrete.
• The shower. A prefab pan and framed door is not a custom tiled shower with frameless glass.
• What is behind the walls. Old pipes often have to come up to code once a permit is pulled.

The visit is free, there is no obligation, and if the number does not work we will tell you which scope does.

Your clock starts on demolition day, not the day you sign. Design, selections and permits happen while you are still using the room.

• Refresh: 3 to 7 days
• Tub-to-shower conversion: 1 to 2 weeks
• Full replacement, same layout: 2 to 3 weeks
• Layout change or primary bath: 3 to 5 weeks

One thing nobody warns you about: frameless glass cannot be ordered ahead. It is measured after your tile is grouted, then fabricated, which adds one to three weeks. Everything else works during that stretch. A framed door skips the wait entirely.

If this is your only bathroom, tell us at the first visit. We sequence the work differently.

Almost certainly, unless the work is purely cosmetic. The trigger is the type of work, not the size of your budget. Swapping a vanity in place is usually fine. Touching plumbing, electrical or ventilation is not.

"Los Angeles" is not one permitting authority. The City, unincorporated LA County, and every OC city run their own process. We confirm which one covers your address before we give you a timeline.

Three things inspectors check that surprise people:

• The fan must vent outside, not into the attic. A window does not count.
• Minimum shower size in California is 1,024 square inches, stricter than national code.
• Shower glass must be tempered or laminated.

Cement board is not waterproofing. It is a tile backer. The manufacturer's own word for it is water-durable. Something else has to hold the water back.

• The membrane does the work. Sheet or liquid, both perform. Ask any contractor if theirs meets ANSI A118.10. If they say the cement board handles it, keep calling.
• Showers fail at the edges, not mid-wall. Inside corners, the valve, and where the membrane meets the drain.
• The pan gets tested before tile. Drain plugged, two inches of water, left overnight. If the level drops, it gets fixed then.

You get photos of all of it before tile covers it. Keep them. That is the only record the layer existed.

Keep the tub if you have small kids, actually take baths, or it is the only tub in the house. Convert if it is a step-over hazard or nobody has used it in years.

The part people underestimate is the drain. A tub drains through a 1.5 inch line. A shower needs 2 inch. That new line has to reach a big enough tie-in, which usually means opening the floor. Crawlspace houses are straightforward. Slab houses mean cutting concrete, and that is a different price.

Worth deciding early: threshold height, and blocking for grab bars. Blocking costs almost nothing while the wall is open. We set it whether or not you install bars now.

Yes, almost always. Most of our bathroom clients stay put.

Floors and pathways get protected, containment and dust control go up at the doorway, and water is shut off only for the hours we are tying in, not for days. Demolition and rough-in are the loud, dusty part. Everything after that is quieter.

If this is your only bathroom, say so at the first visit. We get the toilet back in service as early as the plumbing allows.

It is state law, not something your city invented. When a permitted remodel happens, California requires non-compliant plumbing fixtures throughout the house to be replaced before final approval.

Two things limit it:

• Only homes built on or before January 1, 1994. Newer homes are exempt.
• Only non-compliant fixtures. Toilets over 1.6 gallons per flush, showerheads over 2.5 gpm, faucets over 2.2 gpm.

We check this at the first visit so it is in your written price, not a surprise at final inspection.

You get photos and a written change order before we touch it. Nothing is built or billed on a verbal agreement.

You see what we found, what it costs, and what it does to the schedule. Then you approve it in writing.

Bathrooms hide more than any room in the house, because they have been leaking slowly in places nobody could see. The most common find is rot in the subfloor around an old tub, and there is no way to know until the tub comes out.

Yes, and most of the housing here is that era, so we plan for it. Expect corroded galvanized supply lines, cast iron drains near the end of their life, and framing that is not where the drawings say.

Two things we handle differently:

• Old vinyl flooring and its glue. Assumed to contain asbestos until tested. It cannot be identified by looking at it. If we suspect it, we stop and have it tested.
• Painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes. Federal law requires lead-safe work practices, and a bathroom demo crosses the threshold almost immediately.

Neither means your house is dangerous. It means there is a process, and we follow it instead of guessing.

Yes. Just know that HOA approval and a city permit are two separate things, and the HOA one is not optional because you have the permit.

Your association may control working hours, elevator access, contractor insurance, and how shared plumbing gets handled. Those rules come from your governing documents, not the city.

Tell us it is an HOA property on the first call. It is the most common reason a bathroom start date slips, and it is completely avoidable.