Bathroom Remodel Shower Doors In Auburn Hills, MI
One bathroom out of service, a house you are still living in, and a tile setter whose schedule decides yours. This page is about the order the work has to happen in and the decisions easiest to get wrong.
Which Bathroom You Are Doing Changes Everything
Across a lot of Auburn Hills houses the layout repeats: the big shower sits in the primary bath and the tub sits in the second one. The two remodels are not the same project. The primary is usually a room you are rebuilding, tile and all, and the glass is the last decision in it. The second bath is usually an opening that already exists with something over it that has aged out, and the question is narrower.
Either way, settle one thing first: is the tile moving. If the pan and the tile are sound and only the enclosure is tired, shower door replacement in Auburn Hills leaves the rest of the bathroom alone, and the old unit goes out with our crew instead of into your garage. If the tile is coming off, you are on a different schedule, because glass is measured off finished tile and grout.
The next decision is how the opening works, and that is a room question rather than a catalog question. Over a tub, bathtub shower doors in Auburn Hills have to clear the deck and whatever sits at the end of it. In a tight room where a swinging panel would catch the vanity, sliding shower doors in Auburn Hills answer it by never swinging at all. That is what the in-home measure is for: the actual alcove, the actual deck, and how the room really gets used.
What A Live-In Remodel Asks Of You
One Bathroom Out, Household Planned Around It
If the house has another bathroom, decide now which one carries everybody and for which stretch of the project, then give your tile setter and us the same plan. If the bathroom being redone is the only one, that changes the order everything happens in, and it is worth saying at the measure.
The Measure Waits For Grout
Glass is cut to the finished wall, so numbers cannot be taken while tile is still going up or while grout is curing. A panel measured against bare backer board will not fit the tiled wall, and there is no trimming glass once it has been cut and tempered.
What Is Behind The Old Unit
Until the existing enclosure comes off the wall, nobody knows what the tile looks like underneath, where the old fasteners went, or how square the opening really is. Older houses drift quietly for a long time. We take the old enclosure out and haul it away.
Sequencing Around The Tile Setter
The order is fixed by what each trade needs from the one before it. Demolition, then any plumbing that is moving, then waterproofing and the pan, then tile, then grout, and only then the measure. Framing, plumbing, waterproofing and tile are other trades' work, and all of it finishes before we take a number. Once the numbers exist the glass is made to them, so there is a window between the measure and the install when the shower is not usable. Plan the household around that window existing.
Two habits save homeowners the most grief. The first is not buying an enclosure before the tile is in. A stock unit chosen off the old door's dimensions is a guess, and the tile going in this month changes the opening the glass has to meet. The second is being honest about the room you have rather than the room you pictured. Where a shower takes daily traffic and the opening has drifted, framed shower doors in Auburn Hills absorb what is out of square and carry the load.
- Decide early whether the tile is being replaced
- Keep one bathroom in service if the house allows it
- Measure taken after the tile is set and the grout is done
- Finish and hardware chosen at the measure, with samples in hand
- Old enclosure taken off the wall and hauled away
- Swing checked against the vanity, toilet and tub deck
Common questions.
Can you measure before the tile goes in so the glass is ready sooner?
No, and this is the one step worth being firm about. Glass is cut to the finished surface, and tile adds thickness no allowance can predict wall by wall. Once a panel has been cut and tempered it cannot be trimmed on site. Bare walls give numbers the finished room will not match.
We only have one bathroom. How should we plan it?
Say so at the start, because it changes the order all of us work in. Tell your tile setter and tell us, and keep the two conversations consistent. There is a stretch after the tile is finished when the glass is being built and the shower is out of service.
The tile and the pan are fine. Does the whole shower have to come apart?
Not usually. If the pan, the tile and the waterproofing are sound and it is the enclosure that has aged out, the new one gets built to the opening already there. The old unit comes off the wall and leaves with our crew. The measure checks whether that opening is still square enough.
Will a new enclosure line up with the marks the old one left?
Not always, and it is better to know before the old one comes off. Old frames leave caulk lines and shadow lines on tile, and a unit built to the true opening may not follow them exactly. In a bathroom keeping its tile, look at that together at the measure.
The bathroom is small. Should the door swing or slide?
Stand in it and open the imaginary door. If it would hit the vanity, the toilet or the towel bar, that answers itself. Over a tub, the deck and whatever sits at the end of it decide as much as the walls do. We look at how the room actually gets used.
Do we have to choose the finish before you come out?
You do not. We bring samples in a full range of finishes to the measure and hold them against your fixtures and your tile, in your own light, which is where that decision is easiest to make. If you have already chosen, have the fixture on hand and we match to the piece.
Remodeling A Bathroom In Auburn Hills?
Call (586) 315-8900, text (586) 800-9481, or email [email protected]. Free in-home measure and a no-pressure quote, from our family showroom at 42624 Van Dyke Ave in Sterling Heights. Mon to Fri 9 to 5, Sat 10 to 2.