Bathroom Remodel Shower Doors In Bloomfield Hills, MI
You are living in the house while one bathroom is torn apart, and the glass is the last thing to go in. Knowing where it falls in the sequence turns a Bloomfield Hills remodel from a scramble into a schedule.
One Bathroom Down, A Household Still Running
A remodel is not a smaller version of a new build. On a build nobody is waiting to use the room. In your house somebody is, which makes the sequence personal rather than administrative. The shower goes out of service at demolition and comes back the day the glass is installed, and glass is last, after the tile setter, after the grout, after everything. The project is far easier to live with if you know that on day one instead of learning it in week three.
Here is the part most people do not plan for. We cannot measure until the tile is set and grouted, because the panels are cut to the finished surfaces, and fabrication follows the measure. So there is a stretch where the room looks finished, the tile is beautiful, and the shower still cannot be used because the glass is being built for it. That is normal. Plan around it. If a second bath is carrying the household meanwhile, check whether its own shower door replacement is overdue too.
It is also worth being honest about which project you are doing. If the tile is sound and the only thing dating the room is a pitted framed enclosure, that is a far smaller job and it does not disturb the tile. If you are taking the room back to studs, everything below applies. Either way, the overview of what we build across the city sits on our Bloomfield Hills shower doors page.
What Your Tile Setter Needs To Hear First
Plumb Walls, Pitched Curb
The tile is the surface the glass has to meet, so tell your setter before they start that the shower walls need to run plumb and the curb needs to pitch back into the shower. Both are ordinary requests while someone is still working in there and impossible once the grout has cured.
Backing Where The Hinges Land
If the walls are open, put solid blocking behind them along the hinge wall and the return. Hinges and clips have to anchor into something real. Nobody ever sees it, it happens while the wall is already open, and it is the difference between an open choice of enclosure later and a narrowed one.
Decide The Swing Before The Vanity
A door needs somewhere to go. Check the swing against the vanity, the toilet, the towel bar and the door into the room while the layout can still move on paper. This is the thing most often settled too late in a one-bathroom remodel, and it takes a tape and five minutes.
The Order That Keeps A Remodel From Stalling
The sequence runs demolition, plumbing rough, backing and waterproofing, tile, grout and cure, then our measure on the finished surfaces, then fabrication, then installation. Every step depends on the one before it, which is why the most useful call you make is at the beginning rather than the end. If there is an old enclosure in the room, it comes out and gets hauled away rather than left in your garage. Nothing about the glass is handed to a subcontractor.
Settle a few things before the measure and the visit goes faster. Style first, because a tight alcove and a wide walk-in want different answers, and sliding shower doors keep the floor space a swinging door spends. Then glass, then finish, chosen against the actual faucet rather than a memory of it, so photograph the fixture or set it on the counter. If the room has a tub opening, bathtub shower doors and screens are their own decision, worth making in the same conversation.
- Tell the tile setter the shower walls must run plumb
- Blocking behind the walls before they close up
- Curb pitched into the shower, not out toward the floor
- Swing direction checked against the vanity and door
- Measure happens after the grout, never before
- Finish chosen next to your actual faucet
Common questions.
When In My Remodel Should I Call You?
At the beginning, before the tile setter starts. The conversation is free and it changes what you ask of the other trades, which is where most of the value sits. Calling once the tile is finished still works, it just means a few decisions were made for you by whoever set the walls.
How Long Will The Shower Be Out Of Use?
Longer than the tile work alone, because the measure comes after the grout and fabrication comes after the measure. Timelines vary with the project and the room, and we will give you a realistic window once we have measured and quoted it. What we will not do is guess at a date over the phone.
Can You Measure Before The Tile Goes In?
Not for fabrication. The panels are cut to the finished tile, so the readings have to come off it. We are glad to come earlier to talk through options and flag what the walls and curb need from your other trades, then return for the real measure once the grout is done.
My Tile Is Slightly Out Of Plumb. Is It Ruined?
Almost certainly not. Very few walls are perfectly plumb, and the glass is cut to the readings we take rather than a stock size, so ordinary variation disappears into the fit. There is a point where it shows as an uneven gap, and if your opening is near it you will hear so before anything is ordered.
We Only Have One Other Bathroom. Any Advice?
Sequence deliberately. Make the style and finish decisions early so nothing waits on you, be reachable for the measure as soon as the grout is done, and pick an install day when someone can be home. Households that finish the secondary bath first spend less of the project without a working shower.
Does The Old Enclosure Come Out On The Same Visit?
Yes. The old door, frame and hardware come out and the new glass goes in on the same visit, and the old enclosure leaves with us. You are not left holding a frame in the garage or looking at an open shower in between, which matters when it is your only working bathroom.
Call Before The Tile Goes Up
Remodeling a bathroom in Bloomfield Hills? Book a free in-home measure and a no-pressure quote. Call (586) 315-8900, text a photo of the room to (586) 800-9481, or email [email protected].