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This is bad. I’ve got the decorating bug again, but need to wait several months before we can do more work on the house. We’re working on gradually replacing the rest of the windows first (which we’re doing part of this month) but our next big project will be to rip out the shower in the master bath.

We hate our current shower, which is 4” tile. I should count myself lucky that at least the existing tile is fairly neutral looking. It could have been much worse: Other houses in our neighborhood have glittery orange or green tile. We want to replace the existing tile with something larger and easier to clean. We’ll probably redo the floor tile as well, so that it can all match. This means that we need to do some major demolition. I’ll also paint, once the new tile is in and some of the drywall replaced.

Bathrooms are one of the projects that are supposed to return the most on your investment, but I’d still like to do it as inexpensively as possible. So we’ll most likely do the demolition and tile work ourselves, although I’m a little nervous about tiling walls. (I’ve only ever tiled floors & counter tops before.) We’ll also check around to see if we can find a shower pan at a builder-remnant warehouse. I’m thinking we’ll pay to have someone replace the drywall that will show afterwards, because I absolutely suck at doing drywall. (This is one of those “know your limits” things.)

If you’ve done a bathroom remodel project yourself, feel free to share some of your tips on saving in the process. What would you do differently if you had to do it again?