Bathroom Remodeling in Plano, TX

What a 1990s Plano bathroom usually looks like

Plano went up earlier than the suburbs around it, and the bathroom is the room that dates a house fastest. In the 1980s and 90s builds across West Plano and Legacy, the same set of things turns up again and again:

• Scalloped shell sinks with a dozen curves in them, every one of which holds soap scum
• A laminate vanity top starting to come away from the particleboard under it
• A corner jetted tub nobody has run in years, eating a quarter of the floor
• A separate shower stall too narrow to turn around in, behind a frosted door
• A decorative tile border band running the room at chair height, in a colour that dates it instantly
• Beige floor, beige walls, beige counter

None of it is broken exactly. It just stopped working for the people living there.

When the top starts coming apart from the particleboard

A laminate vanity top is a thin surface glued to a particleboard core. Water finds its way in at the sink cutout or along the backsplash seam, the particleboard swells, and the glue bond lets go. The laminate stops being attached to what is underneath it.

Once the core has swollen it does not go back, so there is nothing to re-bond the surface to. At that point the top is replaced rather than repaired, and the useful question becomes how far the water travelled. We check the cabinet underneath before quoting, because setting a new counter on a base that has also been wet just restarts the clock.

If your top feels soft anywhere, or there is a gap opening at the front edge, that is what is happening.

The corner tub is usually the thing to lose

A lot of Plano primary baths were built with a corner jetted tub and a separate shower stall, and thirty years on the tub has become a shelf while four people queue for a shower you cannot turn around in. Taking the tub out and building one large walk-in shower in that corner buys back more usable room than anything else in the budget, without moving a single exterior wall.

What it involves: pulling the tub and the old stall, opening up what is behind them, new waterproofing across the whole footprint, a pan set to fall correctly, tiled walls, and glass. The waterproofing under the tile is what decides whether the job is still sound in ten years, and it is the part nobody ever sees.

A Plano bathroom we did recently

The room had stopped working. Two scalloped shell sinks with so many nooks and crannies they could not be kept clean, and a laminate top that had come apart from the particleboard underneath it. A corner jetted tub taking up the best part of the floor, and a narrow stall shower next to it behind a frosted door.

The tub and the stall both came out and the whole corner became one walk-in shower: stacked tile to the ceiling, a ceiling rainfall head with a second head and a handheld, mosaic floor, and a single pane of glass instead of a door.

The vanity went too. New quartz top with undermount bowls, which is the part that answers the original complaint. There is nothing left on that counter to trap anything, and it wipes down in one pass.

The homeowner's own summary was that it had become a hundred times more usable.

What else we handle in the room

Vanity tops in quartz and solid surface · Floor and wall tile · Shower pans and glass · Lighting and extraction · Grab bars and comfort-height fixtures for aging in place · Paint and drywall to finish

★★★★★

"Jose Alvarado recently remodeled my bathroom, and I couldn't be happier with the results. He did an excellent job from start to finish, helping me select the perfect tile for the shower, floor, and countertop."

— Molly Bowden, bathroom remodel

Bathrooms are the bulk of what we do. Twelve of our Google reviews are bathroom jobs.

Working with a contractor from Allen

We are one town over in Allen and have remodeled North Texas homes for 15 years. Licensed, insured, and every job backed by our workmanship warranty. Free in-home estimate before anything is committed.

More on the rest of what we do in the city: remodeling in Plano and kitchen remodeling in Plano.