Bathroom Remodeling in Ellicott City, MD

What do Ellicott City bathrooms usually need?

Mostly, it comes down to the decade the house was built. Census estimates show about 57% of Ellicott City homes date from 1980 to 2009, so a typical bathroom here is 15 to 45 years old: a one-piece fiberglass tub-shower, a single vanity, a vinyl or small-tile floor and the original shower valve. These rooms often still function, but caulk lines fail, grout cracks and the subfloor softens around the toilet.

Older homes are a different job. Normandy Heights, the area’s first major subdivision, dates to 1955, and the roughly 8% of homes built before 1960 tend to have small hall baths with tile set in thick mortar beds. Those rooms take more demolition, and what we find behind the old tile shapes the plan.

What’s included in a full remodel?

A full remodel replaces everything from the studs in. On a typical Ellicott City bathroom we:

1. Protect the floors and the route to the bathroom, then remove tile, tub, drywall and any soft subfloor.
2. Repair framing, set the new tub or shower base, and rough in the valve, drain, fan and lighting.
3. Hang cement board and apply a waterproofing membrane on wet walls and the shower floor before tile goes on.
4. Tile the walls and floor, then install the vanity, top, toilet, mirror, glass and trim.
5. Walk the finished room with you and close out anything on the punch list.

Where the permit calls for rough-in inspections, they happen before the walls are closed, so we leave room for them between steps 2 and 3.

Primary baths in 1990s and 2000s colonials

Larger colonials from those two decades often have a primary bath built around a big corner or drop-in tub that rarely gets used. One common change is to replace it with a walk-in glass shower and give the leftover space to a double vanity or linen storage. If you’d rather keep a tub, a drop-in soaking tub can be tiled in with large-format tile. We’ve set marble-look tile around a drop-in soaking tub using leveling clips so the big pieces sit flat.

Townhouse and basement baths

Census estimates show nearly one in five Ellicott City homes is a townhouse. Townhouse bathrooms tend to be narrow and stacked one above the other, so we plan demolition, debris removal and deliveries around shared walls and tight stairs. Lower-level baths are the other common project in these houses, either updating a dated powder room or adding a full bath as part of basement finishing.

Bathrooms in older Main Street buildings

Inside the historic district, bathrooms in stone and frame buildings come with out-of-plumb walls and sloping floors. We level the floor and fur out walls before tile, so the finished lines read straight even when the building isn’t. Leave exterior changes, like a new window or vent, out of the plan until the Commission has reviewed them.

Planning more than one room? See kitchen remodeling in Ellicott City and Ellicott City decks, or read our main bathroom remodeling page for materials and options.