We had one of those 80′s style master baths. Shiny white tile and a cavernous space:
We were walking through the Naperville Home Depot one day (working on other projects) when we were approached by someone asking if we would like a free estimate on bathroom remodeling. We said “sure!” and they sent someone out.
The guys were nice and presented themselves well, but threw “ballpark numbers” at us to gauge our interest. We were resistant to this method and asked for a firmer “estimate” the guys promised to get back to us. A week later, we called them and were told that they didn’t realize that they hadn’t gotten back to us, he promised to get back to us that afternoon. Another week later we got a referral for a real contractor through a friend at Edward Health and Fitness.
Bill Bassetto, Bassetto Builders (630) 220-0802 came out to see us right away. He grasped that we were looking for ways to save a few dollars, kind of like on HGTV when the homeowner participates to some degree.
Bill gave us all sorts of great tips and ideas, made suggestions and gave us quotes quickly.
He suggested that we use Travertine tile as it can be reasonably priced and has an upscale feel. He suggested doing some heavy duty shopping as we would need almost 900 sq ft for the Master Bath and another 450 for the hall bath.
We visited the local tile shops and found the best price to be around $7.99 a square foot before we got his contractor discount. We were in Home Depot (yes, again!) and spotted 18″ Travertine tiles for $2.99 a sq ft, we went through all the boxes picking out the best and bought 20 boxes. Each of them weighed in at about 55 lbs and let me tell you.. my car and back were not happy. We backed up to the house and schlepped each of those boxes up the stairs to be ready for the work to begin.
The next day…. we were at Menards and noticed Travertine tile that was even nicer, but it was only $1.99 a sq ft. So we went through the boxes, loaded 20 of them on a cart, paid for them, loaded them into my poor car, carried them upstairs and stacked them nicely. Then we reversed the process to Home Depot and returned the 20 we bought from them.
We proceeded to clean out the Naperville, Plainfield and Bolingbrook Menards to complete our project.
Bill also suggested heating the master bathroom floors, he said he’s never had anyone regret it. He was right. The materials were less than $800.00 and we enjoyed it from day one.
Bill also asked if we would like him to raise our cabinets (a resounding yes!) and he built a new base for them.
I suspected that there was dead space behind the shower in the master and asked Bill to expand the original space if possible, he was able to double the size, he relocated the plumbing, put in two shower heads and added a bench:
Our total cost on the project was around $11,000, which is significantly different than the ballpark of 20,000 to 25,000 from Home Depot (and that didn’t include some of the extras)
Was it worth it? We’ll know soon enough, in the meantime… we’ve been enjoying it.
