What My Bathroom Renovation Taught Me About Total Cost: A Six-Step Checklist

If you're about to remodel a bathroom, re-side part of your house, or both—and your garage is already full—this checklist is for you. It's six steps long, and it comes from a project I did last spring. A real project, with real change orders.

By day I'm a purchasing manager for a commercial construction company. For the last six years I've managed about $180,000 a year in procurement, and I've learned that the price on the first quote is rarely the price on the final invoice. So when my wife and I remodeled the hall bathroom and replaced the siding on our house, I ran things the same way I run vendor bids: itemized quotes, total cost of ownership, and a spreadsheet for every line item.

I'm in the Southeast US, so the numbers below are what I actually saw in early 2025 in my metro area. Your market will be different. The point isn't the exact price—it's the steps you go through before you sign anything.

Here are the six steps:

1. Lock in every 'while the walls are open' decision before the walls open.
2. Compare materials on installed cost, not price per sheet.
3. Turn every allowance into a real number.
4. Price the storage unit before demo day.
5. Pack fragile things like they're being thrown.
6. Schedule material deliveries so they don't live in a storage unit.

Step 1: Lock in the 'while the walls are open' decisions

The most expensive renovation is the one where decisions get made after the drywall is open. The clearest example in our bathroom: the shower niche. That's the recessed shelf in the tile wall. If you want one, it's a framing and tile-backer decision. It needs to happen before waterproofing goes up, not after.

Our contractor asked about a shower niche at the very start, and I almost said no to save money. Glad I didn't. A 12x20 niche added about $320 to the original bid. If we'd asked for it after the tile layout was set, the same niche would have been a change order at more than double the cost. I know this because the tile guy told me, and because I've written enough change orders at work to know he wasn't exaggerating.

We built the shower walls with Georgia-Pacific DensShield tile backer. It has a coated face and a moisture-resistant core, which is why we use it in commercial showers. The niche was framed and boarded at the same time as the rest of the wall, and the seams were taped and sealed before tile. That's the part you can't redo from inside the shower.

The takeaway: make a list of every feature you're even 10% sure you want—shower niche, grab bar blocking, storage shelf, niche height—and give it to the contractor before demo. Ask for prices in writing. It's cheaper to delete from a quote than to add later.

Step 2: Compare materials on installed cost

Unit price is not cost. That's the total cost of ownership thing I repeat at work, and it applied twice on this project.

On the siding side, I compared wood board-and-batten and Georgia-Pacific board and batten vinyl siding. The wood material didn't look bad on paper. But once I added painting every four to six years and the inevitable repair of a bottom course near the foundation, the vinyl was cheaper over a 15-year window, and I didn't have to find a painter every few years. I'm not claiming vinyl is right for every house. For our house, the total cost math was clear.

Inside the bathroom, I did the same comparison between cement board and DensShield for the shower walls. Cement board costs less per sheet. It also weighs more, cuts slower, and needs tape and thinset on every seam. By the time the labor was added, the DensShield wall was within a few hundred dollars installed—and it has a coated face that doesn't soak up water. For a humid climate, that difference was worth it even if it cost more. It didn't cost more once installed.

Ask your contractor to price the wall or the siding two ways if they're willing. Seeing the labor delta on paper is more useful than any per-square-foot number you read online.

Step 3: Turn every allowance into a real number

The lowest bid we got was about $1,200 under the others. When I asked for the itemized version, it didn't include the dumpster, the permit, or a real fixture allowance. The next-lowest complete bid ended up being the cheapest, and I only knew that because I asked for line items.

Things to look for before you sign:

• A dumpster or haul-away charge. We paid $480.
• Permit and inspection fees.
• Delivery fees for materials.
• An allowance line for tile, fixtures, and accessories—with the dollar amount stated.

Also, agree on how change orders get priced. It sounds bureaucratic, but one sentence in the contract—no change order starts without a written price—saved us from at least one surprise.

Step 4: Answer the storage unit question before demo day

Here's the direct answer to the question I asked myself a hundred times: how much is a storage unit? In my area in early 2025, a basic 5x10 ran about $85–$135 a month. A climate-controlled 5x10 ran about $115–$165. A 10x10, if you're storing furniture from more than one room, was about $150–$250. We only needed a 5x10.

The advertised price is never the full price. Our unit was $129 a month for climate control—or rather, $129 plus a $30 admin fee, $14 a month for required renter's insurance, and the $18 lock they sold us. We also had to put down a $100 deposit. For eight weeks, the total was roughly $420. If I had only looked at the monthly rate, I would have budgeted $258 and been off by more than a third.

Two things I'd tell anyone doing this:

• Ask if the rate is month-to-month or part of a lease. Our project was supposed to take six weeks—okay, it took nine. A month-to-month agreement meant we just paid for the extra weeks. A six-month lease with an early termination fee would have cost us hundreds.
• Don't pick a unit just because it's closer or cheaper. We chose a facility 15 minutes away because it was $20 less per month. Then we drove there four times in one weekend to grab things we forgot. That drive cost more in time and gas than the $20 saved. The cheaper unit wasn't cheaper.

Step 5: Pack the fragile stuff like it's going to be thrown

This sounds like advice from your mom, but the specific thing that bit us was wine glasses. We had a set of crystal wine glasses stored in the original wine box—the kind with cardboard dividers meant for bottles, not stems. The dividers did nothing. When we opened the box after the renovation, two stems were snapped. Replacing the set cost $160. That was more than a month of storage rent.

If you're putting glasses in a storage unit, use dish cells or a proper dish pack, wrap each glass individually, and don't let the box get flipped. Label it on all six sides with OPEN THIS SIDE and arrows. That sounds silly until a storage facility moves your boxes onto a hand truck and rotates one to fit.

Also: don't store fragile boxes under heavy items just to fill the space. A box of china at the bottom of a stack of lamps is a box of broken china.

And if the item is something you'd have to replace—wood furniture, electronics, that box of wine glasses—climate control isn't a luxury upcharge. It's cheaper than replacement.

Step 6: Schedule deliveries so materials don't end up in storage

This is the step most people miss. When I ordered the siding, the supplier offered to deliver it a week before the crew arrived. My first thought was, great, we'll get ahead. Then I looked at the garage. The garage was already full of stuff that didn't fit in the storage unit. The siding would have had to sit in the 5x10 unit, which meant we would have needed a bigger unit, which meant a higher monthly rate, for no benefit.

I called the supplier and asked them to deliver two days before the install instead. They said yes, and we put the delivery date in writing. Same thing happened with the tile: the tile shop wanted to ship as soon as the order was placed, but the bathroom walls weren't ready. We asked them to hold the order. No charge. If you can't hold delivery, ask if the yard will store it until you call—many will for a week or two.

Rule of thumb: buy materials for a project date, not a discount date. Early delivery is just another way of saying I'm paying to store this somewhere.

A few things I'd do differently—or at least tell you before you sign

The cheap storage unit mistake was one. Here are two more small ones.

First, read the storage contract for the words month-to-month and early termination. One facility near us offered two months free if we signed a 12-month lease. That's a great deal only if your renovation ends in exactly 12 months. Ours didn't end on schedule, and renovation schedules always slip.

Second, if your bathroom reno includes a new covered toilet paper dispenser, figure out how it opens before the maintenance person has to force it. This is such a common thing that people search Georgia Pacific toilet paper dispenser how to open all the time. On the covered GP model we installed, the front cover releases from the underside—there's a latch near the bottom front. Some units are keyed, and the plastic key ships in the carton, so don't throw the box away until you've found the key. And don't take a screwdriver to the cover. A replacement cover costs more than the part you're trying to access.

Third—this one is about the word cheap. The storage unit with the lowest rate, the bid with the lowest price, the material with the lowest per-square-foot price—none of them is a total cost. Add the time, the trips, the change orders, the repainting, the broken stems. That's the number that matters.