Primary suites, hall baths, powder rooms, and tub-to-shower conversions. Built from the membrane outward.
Licensed & insured · Free in-home consultation · Fixed written pricing
A bathroom is a small room with more ways to go wrong than any other space in a house. Everything in it is wet, everything in it is tight, and almost everything that fails does so invisibly behind tile for several years before anyone notices.
That is why we build bathrooms from the waterproofing outward. The membrane, the slope of the pan, the way the shower niche is detailed, the transition where tile meets the floor: those are the decisions that determine whether the room is still sound in fifteen years. Tile is what you look at. Waterproofing is what you paid for.
The rest follows from layout. Bathrooms in postwar Valley homes were sized for a very different set of expectations, which usually means a single hall bath with a tub-shower, a small vanity, one ceiling fixture, and no ventilation worth the name. There is often more room to work with than it appears, either by borrowing from a closet, squaring off a doorway, or simply abandoning a tub nobody has used since the kids moved out.
One crew handles all of it. Demolition, framing, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, tile, glass, vanity, fixtures, paint, and the punch list. Nobody is standing around waiting on a trade that never showed.
Many older bathrooms here were built with a window and nothing else, or with a fan that vents into the attic rather than out through the roof. In a climate where a bathroom door stays closed and a shower runs hot, that is how paint peels, how door casings swell, and how mold starts behind the vanity. Proper exhaust ducted to the exterior goes into every bathroom we build.
You get a fixed written price after we have seen the room, with tile, fixture, and glass allowances broken out line by line. Bathrooms are where allowances matter most, because the gap between a builder-grade faucet and the one you actually want is large and worth knowing about before you commit.
Moving plumbing or electrical, altering a wall, or adding an exhaust fan means a permit. In Encino and most Valley neighborhoods that is the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety; Burbank, Calabasas, and Beverly Hills run their own. We prepare and file the plans and meet the inspector on site.
Call (818) 881-8333Every bathroom in a house is a different project with a different budget and a different reason for existing. Treating them all the same is how people overspend on one and underspend on another.
The one worth spending on, because you use it twice a day for as long as you own the house. This is where a curbless shower, a proper bench, a handheld on a slide bar, dual vanities, and separated toilet space earn their cost. In postwar homes the primary bath is often undersized relative to the bedroom next to it, and borrowing a few feet from a closet is frequently the cheapest square footage available.
Durability first. A tub is worth keeping here, tile should be something that survives a decade of hard use, and storage matters more than a statement vanity. This is also the bathroom most likely to have the original 1950s plumbing still in the wall.
The smallest room in the house and the one where a bold material choice costs the least to make. No shower means no waterproofing scope, which is why a powder room is the fastest bathroom we build and the one that changes a first impression most per dollar.
Removing a tub nobody uses and building a proper walk-in shower in its place. The framing is straightforward; the part that matters is the pan, the slope, and the drain relocation. Keep one tub somewhere in the house if you can, both for resale and for anyone with small children.
Large-format tile and slab shower walls need a substrate that is genuinely flat, not merely straight. In older homes the studs rarely are. Floating the walls to plane before tile is unglamorous work that adds a day or two and is the entire difference between crisp grout lines and lippage you will notice every morning.
Six phases. The order matters more in a bathroom than almost anywhere else, because waterproofing has to be inspected and cured before a single tile goes on the wall.
We measure the room, check what is under the vanity, look at the venting, and find out where the drain and supply lines run. Whether the toilet drain can move is often the question that decides the entire layout.
A measured layout, tile and fixture options at three price points, and a fixed written price with allowances broken out. Selections get locked before demolition, because a tile decision made mid-project stalls everything behind it.
Tile, glass, vanity, and fixtures are ordered up front. Shower glass is measured and fabricated after the tile is set, so that piece is scheduled rather than ordered early. Plans are filed in parallel where a permit applies.
Down to the studs and subfloor. This is when we find out what the last sixty years did to the framing around the pan, and we show you before we cover it back up.
Plumbing and electrical rough-in, inspection, then backing, waterproofing membrane, and a flood test on the pan before tile. Tile setting and grout follow. This is the longest phase and the one that should not be rushed.
Vanity, toilet, faucets, mirrors, lighting, and hardware go in, then custom glass is installed to the finished dimensions. We walk it with you, write the punch list, and clear it before final payment.
Tile choice affects labor cost as much as material cost, which is the part most quotes never explain.
| Surface | Where it works | Watch out for | Upkeep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Porcelain tile | Floors, shower walls, anywhere wet | Very little — the default for good reason | Grout cleaning |
| Large-format porcelain | Shower walls, fewer grout lines | Needs a genuinely flat substrate; heavier to set | Minimal |
| Natural stone | Primary baths, statement walls | Etching from acidic cleaners; varies slab to slab | Seal periodically |
| Quartz | Vanity tops | Direct heat from a styling tool | None |
| Zellige and handmade tile | Accent walls, powder rooms | Irregular by design — slower to set, higher labor | Seal, then minimal |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone.
Valves and drains. Nobody sees them and replacing them later means opening the wall you just tiled. A quality pressure-balanced or thermostatic valve is one of the few upgrades in a bathroom that you will notice every day and never have to think about again.
Lighting is the other one. A single ceiling fixture puts every shadow on your face exactly where you do not want it. Light at the mirror from both sides, or at minimum an even wash across it, is the difference between a bathroom that photographs well and one that works at 6am.
Bathrooms are small rooms with dense scope. Square footage tells you very little about what one costs.
Hold 10 to 15 percent in reserve. Bathrooms in pre-1980 houses hide more than kitchens do, because the failure mode is slow water rather than obvious wear, and nothing about it is visible until the tile comes off.
We price the room after seeing it, in writing, with allowances itemized. A bathroom quoted over the phone is a guess about a room full of things nobody has looked at yet.
We remodel bathrooms throughout Encino and the surrounding San Fernando Valley and Westside communities. Tap your city for local housing stock and permitting.
Not on the list? Call (818) 881-8333 — we travel outside our core area for the right project.
We will walk the room, check the venting and the plumbing runs, talk through what is realistic in the footprint, and give you a fixed written price. No charge, no obligation.