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We’ve been wanting to remodel our master bathroom for at least 7 years now, but it’s been very low on our list for a couple of reasons. For one thing, there were so many other things to do to the house first. For another, it just seemed like so much work. I’m pretty handy — I’ve done a LOT of stuff to our house myself or with my husband’s help, but I wasn’t sure about doing this. I’m not sure why, because “I’ve never done it before” has never prevented me from doing any other project myself.

Our original thought was simple: re-tile the shower. That shouldn’t be too bad: demo the old stuff, put up backer board, replace hardware, re-tile, & then replace the door. Under $2000 if we did it ourselves, I thought. But then I got to thinking, why not turn it into a full bath instead of a 3/4 bath? That would make our house hit a minimum of 3bed, 2 bath on the MLS if/when we got ready to sell it in several years, which would give us access to more potential buyers. Plus it would be nicer for us as well. But there’s no way I personally could install a tub. I’m not strong enough, and I’m really not interested in jack hammering the floor to move the drain. Nor am I that confident in my plumbing skills. So we decided to get a quote on remodeling.

And it was a LOT. A whole lot. (But still less than the average price for a bathroom remodel, which is as it should be since we’re not replacing the toilet and have already redone the cabinet, sink, floor, and lighting ourselves.) Still, I could buy a very nice used car for the price. We agreed to have it done.

But I keep thinking about it. It goes against everything I’ve ever done to just hand a general contractor a project and have them do it. It is so hard for me to stand back and just watch someone do something to our house — especially something that I know I could do part of myself. I don’t think their quote is out of line — I think we could get it done for less elsewhere, but without as much confidence that the work will be done right, and that’s not worth it. But it’s just so much money — mostly for labor. Even with a tub instead of a shower, since we decided to leave off doors for the tub we’re still at about $2000 in materials alone. The rest though is all labor, permits, and profits.

I think it will look nice when it is done, but I can’t help thinking, “You know, we could get this done for much less if we just had different people bid on the parts of the job that I can’t do myself, and then had them come in when the time is right.” But that would also slow the job down immensely. Somehow waiting 7 years to start the project is fine, but having our master bath become a construction zone for probably a minimum of a month does not sound so appealing.

So I don’t know. We’re totally paying for convenience. Writing this made me realize that “paying for convenience” isn’t something that my family of origin does. In my family, if you can do it yourself, you do it, because at least then if you screw up you haven’t paid someone else to do a poor job. Faulty reasoning maybe, but there it is. So there are three things going on here: not being thrilled about spending so much money, feeling like I should do more of it myself (I’ll still be doing the demo and painting), and of course opportunity cost (what we could do with the money instead).

My husband is perfectly fine with paying someone else to do it. Me, I’m having to adjust, which is a little silly since I’d have to pay someone else to do the hard parts.