Big Impact in a Small Bath
Aug 17, 2020An unexpected problem leads to a beautiful, affordable shower upgrade
Where: Upper Arlington, OH
What: Shower remodel
Products: Calcutta marble wall surround, Reveal laser-engraved Roman Block pattern, sliding glass shower door, Align shower head and thermostatic valve
Sometimes homeowners are in charge of their remodeling plans, and sometimes the universe takes over.
When Laura & Blake Williams bought their house in the spring of 2019, they began putting their personal touches throughout, painting the first floor, brightening up the kitchen cabinets, and working on improvements upstairs while spending time at home during the 2020 quarantine. Remodeling the master bath was going to happen down the road – until the shower door pulled right out of the wall!
before photos
“At that point, we were on a much shorter timeline to update the bathroom than we anticipated,” Laura says. “We were able to put up a shower curtain to keep the shower usable, but it was nowhere near the style we wanted to live with for any length of time.”
As new homeowners without a lot of remodeling experience, the Williamses turned to HomeAdvisor for guidance. By offering a quick outline of their bathroom renovation needs, HomeAdvisor matched the couple with ImproveIt Home Remodeling.
“We told ourselves we would talk to a few companies and compare quotes,” Blake says. “That was the plan. But we met with ImproveIt first and we were so impressed with everything that we cancelled our other appointments and spent three hours picking out every single detail of our project right then and there.”
Trust & Confidence
Laura and Blake sat down with project consultant Chris Harris who shared both his design expertise and his knowledge of the neighborhood to help the Williamses come up with the perfect bath design for their needs.
“When we originally started, we thought about gutting the whole bathroom, but we also needed to be able to stay within our budget,” Laura says. “Chris was really conscious of that, and helped us narrow the scope to selections that would solve our problem in the best way possible. That was really nice of him because he could have continued to upsell us into work that wasn’t really necessary. Instead, he was really helpful and it made us even more comfortable with our choice to go with ImproveIt because we knew we could trust the people there.”
Laura adds that Chris’s knowledge of the Cost vs. Value report for their area helped play into their design and product selections.
“We’re first-time homeowners, so we know this isn’t our forever home,” she says. “We’ll probably stay here for about five years, and Chris was really respectful of that.”
“It feels good that we haven’t spent too much money and now we don’t feel like we have to stay in our home longer than we wanted to in order to get our money’s worth. We know we’re going to get dollar-for-dollar back on this bathroom when we sell the house down the road.”
Perfect Design
By narrowing the scope of work to focus on the shower, the Williamses were actually able to splurge on the project and materials, and still stay within their preferred budget. Their formerly small shower stall gained almost a foot of length by removing an unnecessary wall that formed the shower niche. With new backerboard and waterproofing measures installed, the walls were then finished to the ceiling with ImproveIt’s Calcutta marble wall color and exclusive Reveal laser-engraved Roman block tile pattern.
"Reveal is amazing. It looks like real stone and grout, and not like a cheap mock-up."
“We love that we won’t have the maintenance upkeep that we did with tile and grout before. It felt like every couple of months I was checking the grout in the shower and resealing parts of the tile. We’ll never have to worry about that again.”
Blake agrees, adding that they were both impressed by ImproveIt’s responsiveness after the project was finished. “We included his-and-hers ledges in the original project, but we realized after they were finished that we really wanted to add one more,” he says. “We texted Chris, and he had an ImproveIt team member call us, and they were here to install another ledge in just a couple of days. I can’t say enough about how simple the process was.”
With the master bathroom now showcasing great style that will last a lifetime, the Williamses say they’re finished updating their home – for now. “Down the road, we know if there’s anything else that comes up, we’re going to call ImproveIt,” Laura says. “We’ve had a great experience, and it feels good to have a company in our back pocket that we can trust.”
