Hawthorne Avenue Bathroom Remodel

This 1970s hall bathroom still had its original fiberglass tub-shower unit, yellowed and cracked at the caulk lines, with a persistent musty smell the Shah family assumed was just an old-house thing. Once we pulled the tub out, we found the actual cause: a slow leak at the shower valve had been wicking into the subfloor for years, softening a roughly three-foot section of plywood.

We called before cutting anything further, sent photos of the damaged subfloor, and priced the additional structural repair as a separate line item so the family could approve it before we proceeded. With the floor rebuilt, we installed a curbless walk-in shower with a linear drain, full-height porcelain tile, and a new vanity with better storage than the original medium cabinet it replaced.

The subfloor repair added six days to the original two-and-a-half week estimate, which we’d flagged as a realistic possibility given the visible staining at the initial inspection.