Managing your own bathroom remodeling project

This is the story of a friend of mine who decided to handle the project management of her bathroom remodel all by herself. She is a teacher and is well organised. She also has more time to be at home than most of us so she was well placed to handle the project, or so she thought

My friend got herself organised by deciding what she wanted in her new bathroom and drawing detailed plans on squared paper. When she had researched the fixtures, fittings and accessories that she wanted and found the lowest prices available she turned her mind to hiring contractors to do the job.

Remodeling tasks to be managed

My friend was able to identify all the tasks that would have to be done before her new bathroom was complete. Her list included some or all of the items below.

• Ensuring compliance with any legal requirements.
• Remove and dispose of bathroom fixtures.
• Bathroom design and styling.
• Building works including moving walls and widows etc.
• Finishing off interior walls and drying.
• Electrical installation.
• Plumbing installation.
• Fit new bathroom fixtures.
• Tile and seal walls.
• Floor covering.
• Correct any problems.

That's a long list and she knew that it was going to take a fair number of contractors to do it all. Before she could go looking for people she needed to work out what skills they would need. So she produced a list that looked similar to the one below.

Skills needed for bathroom remodel

• Carpenter
• Builder
• Electrician
• Glazier
• Plasterer
• Plumber
• Floor covering specialist

She could see from this that she would have her work cut out for her just phoning around for a couple of days. She used the phone book and the Internet to look for suitable workers to do the job. Then she visited her local bathroom showrooms and asked the staff if they could recommend anyone. This strategy turned out to be the best way to find good people to do the job as often the staff had personal contact with the contractors. She also obtained a few leads from friends who had recently remodeled their bathrooms.

The project management begins

This is where the fun started. She had to arrange for contractors to turn up at the right time and make sure that the new fixtures and fittings were delivered on time to be available when the appropriate contractors were on site. With so many people involved she found that it was quite difficult to get everyone to fit in with her plan. Her desire to get the work done during the school holidays only made things worse.

Finally she managed to get everyone to agree on a plan, they all knew what they were doing and when they should be doing it. My friend thought that she had done a good job but that was just the start of the problems.

The problems had begun

The Fitters stripped out the old bathroom furniture on time but the delivery of the new fixtures was delayed. The workers turned up on time to fit the new stuff but they had to be sent away and asked to come back when the delivery turned up. This had a knock on effect with the remainder of the project plan for the bathroom remodel and threw my friends carefully laid out plan into disarray.

Project management is much harder than it seems

The delivery delay was just the start of the problems my friend had to solve. The wrong washbasin was delivered and it was too big to fit into the space allowed. The electric shower was faulty and it had to be replaced. The plumbing sprung a leak, which wasn't noticed until the plumber was well gone.

The problems went on and on and what should have been a 2 week project turned into 3 months and it still wasn't quite finished even then. My friend was at the end of her tether and swore that she would never ever do anything like that again.

Get someone else to manage your project

If you are just about to start remodeling a bathroom you will be happy to know that you dont have to do it yourself, no matter how tempting you might think it is. You can hire a project manager to plan, coordinate and solve all the problems for you or you can do what I did and find someone who is capable of doing the entire job by themselves.

You will find a summary of your options in the article Project management - Bathroom Remodel