Three bathrooms in a Carmel Valley house, rebuilt as one six-week project, with custom vanities in every one.
The master
A large shower, custom cabinets, and tile on the walls and floors.
Building a big shower is not simply a matter of framing a bigger box. The pan has to be pre-sloped correctly across the whole area and the drain positioned so water reaches it from every corner. Large showers are less forgiving than small ones — over a short run a slope error still drains, over a long one water finds the flat spot and stays there.
The waterproofing has more to get right too. More wall area means more corners, more changes of plane, and more places for the membrane to be lapped properly or not.
The second bathroom: tub to tub
The tub stayed a tub — a new one, in the same place, with everything around it rebuilt.
Tub-to-tub is the right treatment when the layout already works and the household wants to keep a bath. It is faster than a conversion because the drain does not move, and it is not cosmetic: the tub comes out, the walls go back to the studs, new waterproofing goes in, and new tile goes on.
It is also worth keeping at least one tub in a house. Once every bathroom has become a walk-in shower, a family with small children has nowhere to bathe them — and buyers with small children notice.
The third bathroom: shower to shower
Rebuilt in place. Out to the studs, new pan, new membrane, new tile. Nothing moved, because nothing needed to.
Retiling over an existing pan would have been quicker and would have left a new-looking shower sitting on an assembly nobody had looked at. If the tile is coming off, what is behind it comes off too.
Custom vanities in all three
Every vanity in the project was built rather than bought.
Doing three bathrooms at once is what makes that practical. The same shop drawings, the same finish and one delivery cover all three, and the rooms end up relating to each other instead of looking separately specified years apart.
Tile on walls and floors throughout
All three bathrooms tiled on the walls and the floors, each over new waterproofing, and each set out in advance so the courses land properly at the corners.
Six weeks for three bathrooms
Sequenced as one project: one demolition phase, one plumbing rough, one tile crew moving room to room, one inspection cycle. Three separate projects would have meant three of each and the house returned to as a job site three times.
The result
Three bathrooms finished to the same standard, in six weeks.
