Bathroom Remodel Archives - Inspired Remodels

General Contractors Guide to Surviving Home Remodeling

Renovation length varies depending on the scope of the project. Painting may take from a few days to a couple of weeks. But a major kitchen or bathroom remodel can take from one to four months. If your home remodeling project involves adding a room, plan on disruption lasting up to six months. How can you survive a home remodeling project that disrupts home life for weeks to months? Follow along as Orange County general contractors share tips for surviving the process.

Pick the Right Time

Things like contractor availability and budget often drive the timing of your home renovation. But, before signing on, consider the time of year and the season of your life.

Holidays disrupt schedules, home remodeling throws them out the window! Consider if you have the fortitude to renovate during the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year holidays.

If your kids play sports on traveling teams, you might want to wait for the season to wind down.

Picking the right time helps reduce that overwhelming feeling that often kicks in before the project is completed.

Communicate and Plan with Your General Contractor

Keep abreast of what is happening and when to reduce that chaotic feeling. When interviewing, find out if you will be provided with a dedicated point of contact for communication. As a design-build general contractor, Inspired Remodels assigns a team member to be your communication point. You should expect no less from any professional contractor. Forewarned is forearmed.

For example, demolition creates lots of noise, dust, and mess. Know when and how long demo will last. Those will be the best days to be out of the home all day.

If you work from home, knowing what happens on what days helps you know the days it’s best to take that video call at the library.

For bathroom and kitchen remodels, follow these specific tips for setting up alternative cooking and bathing spaces during construction.

Knowing what will happen each day helps you create a schedule that works for your sanity and allows the contractors to get their work done, too.

Protect Valuables

Invest in storage during the remodeling project. Whether you get a storage pod dropped off at the house or use off-site storage, get your stuff out of the way.

This protects your items from demolition and construction dust and debris. If it is not on site, workers can’t break it.

In addition, removing clutter reduces the feeling of chaos that can take over during extensive remodeling.

general contrators after kitchen remodeling

Keep Your Eye On the Outcome

Keep Expectations Realistic

Be prepared for things to go wrong and be prepared to move forward. This is the time to lower your standards temporarily.

You may eschew dining out and cook every night. Understand that a kitchen remodel makes this exceedingly difficult. Especially if the space is stripped to the walls. Cook in a temporary kitchen in the garage or eat out. Accept it.

Come to terms with bathing and dressing in a secondary bath until the primary en suite of your dreams comes to life.

Being prepared for disruption makes it easier to get through extensive home remodeling unscathed.

Orange County Bathroom Remodel Service: Dissecting Great Design

By Inspired Remodels / Bathroom Remodel, Home Improvement / Comments Off

What makes a great bathroom design? Is it the tile on the floor or the stunning sink? No! Ask any Orange County bathroom remodel service with years of experience under their tool belt what makes a great bathroom design, and they will tell you it starts with making the most of the space and then builds from there. Inspired Remodels, the premier Orange County bathroom remodel service, breaks down the elements of a winning bathroom design.

Orange County bathroom remodel service after adding a dark wood vanity

This design incorporates space between tub, shower, and vanity

Room to Move

Resist the urge to cram more in the space than will comfortably fit. Ignore this golden rule, and no matter how great the room looks, you will regret your choices on a regular basis.

Give yourself room to breathe and move. Allow at least 30” of space in front of toilets, bathtubs, showers, and vanities. Don’t design a water closet so small that the door touches the knees of a person sitting on the toilet. You may laugh, but it happens.

Orange County bathroom remodeling contractors (Orange County) after photo with seamless glass shower, white soaking tub, dual mirrors, and 3 contrasting tile patterns

Add lighting in layers

Layer Your Lighting

Bathrooms are like kitchens; they require several sources of lighting. Ambience lighting adds to the spa-like experience of soaking in a tub with bath salts and unwinding at the end of a hard day. But that’s not the light needed to shave in the morning. Or apply makeup.

Personal care routines require task lighting. Don’t guess where the mascara goes; apply it properly the first time with the help of light from a source close to your mirrors.

A savvy Orange County bathroom remodel service design starts with overhead lighting. Recessed lighting tops the list for providing overall light to a room. Light cans installed overhead spread light throughout the room.

Next, add light to the vanity and mirror area. Scones next to the mirrors or lighted mirrors offer ample light for detail work such as shaving or applying facial products.

Cabinets, drawers, and medicine cabinets offer storage

Ample Storage

Functional bathroom designs include plenty of space to store linens and personal care items. No one wants to find out they are out of toilet paper at the wrong moment and realize none is stored in the room.

If you haven’t been there before, count yourself lucky.

Cabinets keep linens and essentials hidden until needed. Shelves offer space for decorative items and those you want at your fingertips. Drawers provide room for self-care items as well as the essential first-aid kit.

If you have room, include space for storing bathroom cleaning products. Keeping the room sparkling clean becomes easier when everything you need lives close by.

Spa-Quality Finishes

Include finishes that make the design special to you. When you think spa-quality finish, what comes to mind first?

That’s the element to first incorporate in your design. This element of the design requires personalization by the designer. Work with a designer who starts with your favorites and then incorporates them into the room.

Do you want heated floors? Tell the designer, as this item helps determine what finishes you can use on the floors.

Is a soaking tub important to you? This amenity requires plenty of room for the tub, filler plumbing, and entry/exit. If space is limited, you may consider a water room, which incorporates the tub and shower in one space.

The Inspired Orange County Bathroom Remodel Service

Inspired Remodels designs inspired bathrooms that offer functionality and beauty.

In the bathroom above, the dressing and vanity area sits across the room from the shower. This keeps the room looking large, open, and fresh. Rule 1 check!

A vanity that accommodates double sinks also offers plenty of drawer and cabinet space for storage. Mirrored medicine cabinets hide bonus storage while keeping smaller items at your fingertips. Rule 2 check!

Overhead recessed lighting augments the natural light from the window to keep the room feeling spacious and airy. Sconce lights framing the mirrors bathe the vanity area with task lighting. Tweeze and shave away with confidence. Rule 3 check!

Large format tiles on the floor and backsplash, and vertical subway tiles on the walls, lean into sophisticated spa-level vibes. Rule 4 check!

Work with an Orange County bathroom remodel service that checks the boxes. Schedule a consultation with Inspired Remodels today.

Living room on the coast with views of the ocean through large window and folding door system with wood flooring

Orange County Flooring Contractor Faves (And What Makes Them Special)

By Inspired Remodels / Bathroom Remodel, Home Improvement, Kitchen Remodel / Comments Off

When it comes to picking floors, every Orange County flooring contractor has a few favorites in their portfolio. What makes these floors contractor favorites? It could be the appearance, durability, or ease of care.

Here are a few of the flooring products loved by Inspired Remodels. With just a look, we think these will quickly be your faves too. Which one goes best in your house?

Engineered Hardwood Plank Flooring

In California, the days of traditional hardwood flooring have come and gone. In its place? Engineered hardwood flooring.

Hartco manufactures engineered hardwood planks that not only deliver on luxury but also double down on durability. They look like solid hardwood because the top, visible layer of the plank is a hardwood veneer. This is an actual wood layer, just not as thick as traditional hardwood.

But you’ll love the way they perform like traditional hardwood when it comes to durability. Most engineered wood planks stand up to sanding and refinishing over the life of the floor.

We love floors that fit challenging spaces. Engineered hardwood floors work in places where humidity and temperature present a challenge. They work over radiant heat and concrete slabs, too.

Forget the detergents, waxes, and polishes. Simply wipe up spills and clean with a dry dust mop or sweep with a broom. A vacuum fitted with a soft, horsehair brush (no rotating beater bars, please) works well too.

As a flooring contractor, Inspired Remodels also loves LVP flooring as it does not require acclimation. Unlike hardwood flooring, LVP planks can be installed as soon as the subfloor is prepared. That means less disruption in the home during installation.

Who doesn’t love that?

Provenza Hardwood Flooring

We confess an affinity for California companies. Like Inspired Remodels, Provenza calls California home.

But more than an affinity, we absolutely love the handcrafted, artisan nature of Provenza flooring products.

When you look at these hardwood planks, you quickly notice that no two boards are the same. That’s because each plank receives careful handcrafting before being shipped for installation in your home.

African Plains collection by Provenza

The variation in grain and stain gives these floors a real luxury feel. They also create handscraped and hand-distressed flooring for a more rustic and old-world vibe, perfect for Spanish architecture. In a world of mass-produced hardwoods, it’s nice to know one California company still values artisan work.

If you want the warmth and luxury of real hardwood and appreciate craftsmanship, you’ll make Provenza flooring one of your faves too.

Wood Look Tile

Bedrosians and select other flooring manufacturers created a flooring contractor’s dream product. If porcelain tile had a baby with hardwood, they would create wood-look tile.

This is the wood flooring that goes where wood dares not. Put it in the bathroom, heck, put it on the shower floor. As with any other tile product, wood-look tile stands up to water.

Flooring that looks like wood and wears like tile makes it a flooring contractor fave for kitchen floors. Go ahead, spill the milk and splash the marinara. Then bend down and wipe it up with a paper towel.

Inspired Remodels recommends waterproof floors for bathrooms and busy kitchens. When you want the look of wood, but it is not practical, go for wood-look tile.

Can you tell this isn’t a real wood floor?

Orange County Flooring Contractors at Inspired Remodels

Inspired Remodels offers full flooring services. Install new flooring as part of a larger renovation or remodeling project, or do it as a stand-alone project.

Each flooring job includes assistance with selecting the right flooring to meet your needs, subfloor preparation, installation, and cleaning up when the job is done.

Change your flooring and change the look of any room. What flooring will be your new favorite for 2026?

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