A bathroom is the smallest room we remodel and the one that disrupts a house the most. It is also the one where the parts you cannot see — the pan, the waterproofing, the drain under the slab — decide whether the work lasts.
Here is what actually happens, in the order it happens, from a contractor who does this in Bradford, Clay and Alachua counties.
The timeline, phase by phase
Two to six weeks for a full remodel, depending on size and how much moves. A realistic breakdown:
| Phase | Time | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| Demo | 1–2 days | Everything out to the studs and subfloor. This is when surprises turn up. |
| Rough-in | 2–4 days | Plumbing and electrical moved and set. Nothing looks like progress. |
| Inspection | 1–2 days | Only if permitted, and it has to pass before anything gets covered. |
| Waterproofing and backer | 2–3 days | The part that decides whether your remodel lasts ten years or two. |
| Tile and grout | 4–7 days | Slow by nature. Grout and mortar need to cure between steps. |
| Paint and trim | 2–3 days | |
| Fixtures and finish | 1–2 days | Vanity, toilet, glass, hardware. |
The number people find hardest to believe is the tile. A custom shower is not four days of laying tile — it is set, cure, grout, cure, seal. Rushing any of it is how you get grout that cracks in the first year.
A custom shower we built in wood-look porcelain with a slate accent and a pebble floor. Two weeks of tile work in a room you could park a car in.
What the demo finds
Almost every older bathroom around here hides one of these, and each adds days:
- Rotten subfloor around the toilet flange. The most common one. A slow wax-ring leak nobody noticed rots the floor from beneath.
- Cast iron drain lines. Standard in Starke and Keystone Heights houses built before the 1970s. Still serviceable, but tying modern PVC into them is not a ten-minute job.
- No waterproofing behind the old tile. Very common in 1980s and 1990s builds — tile set straight onto greenboard, which is not a waterproof system and never was.
- A slab you cannot simply move a drain in. On a slab, relocating a shower or toilet means cutting and patching concrete. It is doable. It is not free, and it is worth deciding before demo, not after.
This is why an estimate given before anything is opened up is a starting point, not a final number. Any contractor who tells you otherwise is guessing.
Permits
In Florida, swapping a vanity, toilet or faucet like-for-like generally does not need a permit. Moving plumbing or electrical, altering walls, or replacing a tub or shower generally does — and the exact line moves depending on whether you are in the county or inside a city limit.
That is our job, not yours. We pull the permits, schedule the inspections and meet the inspector. What it costs you is calendar time: an inspection has to pass before the wall gets closed, so an inspector who cannot come until Thursday means the tile does not start until Friday.
If a contractor suggests skipping the permit to save a week, that is a reason to get another contractor. Unpermitted bathroom work surfaces at closing when you sell.
Decide everything before demo day
You will need most of your materials chosen before the first swing:
- Vanity, sink and faucet
- Tub or shower base, and the valve — the valve has to be in the wall before tile
- Tile for floor, walls and any accent
- Flooring outside the wet area
- Lighting and exhaust fan
- Paint
The reason is sequencing, not paperwork. A shower valve picked late holds up the rough-in, and the rough-in holds up everything else. One undecided item in week one costs more days than any other kind of delay.
Waterproofing is the whole job
If you take one thing from this: what goes behind the tile matters more than the tile.
A proper wet area is a waterproof system — a bonded membrane or a foam board panel, seams sealed, corners treated, the pan sloped correctly to the drain. Tile and grout are not waterproof. Grout is porous by design. Water gets through it, every time, and the membrane behind is what stops it reaching your framing.
Pebble floor on a properly sloped pan. The slope is set before a single pebble goes down.
In our humidity this is not theoretical. A shower without real waterproofing behind it will find the framing within a few years, and by the time it shows on the outside wall the repair is much bigger than the original job.
While the walls are open, get the exhaust fan right too — vented outside, not into the attic, and sized for the room. It is the cheapest mold prevention there is.
Living through it
Expect dust, noise and people in and out from early. You can make it easier:
- Seal the zone. Plastic sheeting and painter’s tape on the doorway. We do this, but the more of the house you can close off, the better.
- Agree on hours. Know when crews arrive and when they stop. Most surprises are really scheduling surprises.
- Keep kids and pets clear. Open drain lines, tools, exposed wire.
- Have a shower plan. If this is your only bathroom, plan on being elsewhere for the wet-work stretch — roughly demo through the pan going in. A second bathroom makes it survivable, but there will still be days without hot water when the plumbing is being tied in.
Who does the work
A bathroom stacks plumbing, electrical, waterproofing and tile in a room where every one of them touches water. Mistakes here do not stay small, and they do not show up until later.
What you want is a licensed contractor who coordinates the trades, pulls the permits, meets the inspections, and is still around in three years if something needs looking at. Ask who is actually doing the tile. Ask what waterproofing system they use — if the answer is vague, keep looking.
The Miller bathroom — subway tile surround, hex mosaic floor, finished and back in service.
One of our Gainesville customers put it better than we would: “They walked us through every step and the waterproof tile floor looks incredible.”
Ready to start?
We remodel bathrooms across Starke, Keystone Heights, Gainesville, Middleburg and the rest of North Central Florida — walk-in showers, tub-to-shower conversions, full gut jobs. Come by the showroom on South Water Street with a photo of your bathroom and we will walk you through what it would take.
Bathroom remodeling · See our work · Free estimate · (904) 964-8347