First of all, I want to thank the many people on House who shared with me their opinions before I started my master bath remodel on my Silicon Valley, 1272 sq ft, 3Bd/2Ba home built in the '50s.

Most everyone advised me to tear down my outdated 25+ yr old shower tiles, and warned I would regret not doing so. I considered this possibility seriously, and decided to go with my gut of keeping the shower in tact for the following reasons:

1. It would have doubled my remodeling cost. As is, I can replace my shower any time w/o impacting the rest of the bathroom. At most, I’ll need to custom reorder the small pane of glass shower door for $300, if the new shower doesn’t accommodate my shower glass perfectly.
2. My shower is in perfect condition in every way, even the grout is perfect. My contractor said, “Wow, no one does tilework like that anymore” and proceeded to point out to me the attn to details/mastery demonstrated by the people who installed the tiles originally.
3. The tiles never did and still doesn’t bother me. Plus, once I had the room paint matched, and all the accessories from the shower door knob to towel bars to my clothes hamper carefully selected, I love the overall effect. This is a home that I will likely make into a rental in a few years. I created luxury by investing in Porcelanosa vanity and flooring. Procelanosa is normally rather expensive, but I bought everything at 40% off during its once a yr sale over Thxgiving. At that price, it’s only 2X as expensive as other brands. Therefore, I could afford and justify the splurge.

Bottom line is, I learned creating a harmonious flow is the key. When you are trying to remodel judiciously and money is a consideration, these are the questions I had to ask myself:

1. What I'm thinking of keeping, is it still of quality? Is it worth keeping? In my case, my shower tiles are not just in good shape, they're in exceptional shape. So they were worth keeping.

2. What design elements are musts? Given my tiny bathroom, storage is critical. This is why I chose a free standing vanity that has 3 functional drawers and a tall storage. I added electrical outlets in my medicine cabinet and in my drawer to hide my electric toothbrush and hair dryer respectively.

3. What would I need to do and what compromises would I be willing to make in order to create the necessary flow if I combined the old shower with everything else new? I decided the key is to add quality new, because quality old + quality new speak volume. In addition, I was willing to work around the color scheme dictated by my shower. Although it's not necessarily my first choice, all else equal, when I finally pulled all the elements together, I LOVED the overall effect and was relieved that I didn't have to fuss with color selection if I had gutted the bathroom and started from scratch.

(I'm having trouble uploading the before photo. Not sure why)

What else made me happy with my remodel?

1. My contractor, Tim Hanuschik of Commstruction Maxx, 650-814-5052, constructionmaxx@me.com. His work ethics, atten to details (including cleaning up so I didn't find my room full of dust at the end of the project), very reasonably priced turnkey proposal, and all the little advice/suggestions he brought up along the way that made a HUGE difference made my bathroom remodel experience one that I couldn't have asked to be better. Tim and his partner, Abi, completed my 2-week remodeling job on time and on budget!

2. My ability to be decisive and get organized. Just before Thxgiving, I decided I wanted my bathroom remodeled. So, it took me 2 weeks to shop all the parts before deciding to go with Porcelanosa all the way. It took 2 more weeks to get 3 bids. I waited 2 weeks for Tim to begin constructions. And, it took him 2 weeks to complete the job.

It feels amazing to start 2018 with a new master bath that I've waited 25 yrs since the last owner remodeled to suit my taste!