More than any other room in the house, bathrooms are tricky to renovate, and mistakes in design can cost you more than you expect. You need to take size, lighting, flooring, and doors and windows into consideration, but there's also the plumbing and wiring to consider. The following guide should help put you on the right track and avoid common pitfalls.

Decide on the basics

Your contractor and the rest of your design team will want to know the basics so that they can work around your preferences. Think about where you want your bathroom – are you redesigning an old bathroom, or building a new one somewhere else? Will it be part of a bigger room, or a separate bathroom? How big do you want it to be? How much floor space can you allot for the shower/bath area, toilet, sink, and cabinets?

Work with the right people

You can probably attach hooks and towel racks yourself, but it's never a good idea to take on the plumbing and wiring on your own. You need to work with several skilled people to make sure everything works together. A basic team should have a plumber and electrician to fix the pipes and wiring, and an architect or interior designer who can help you with the design. If you can afford it, you can also hire a flooring expert, painter, and a carpenter or cabinet maker.

Make sure everyone on the team is highly qualified, insured, and licensed. You can do a little background research looking them up in a directory or professional listing, or interviewing people they have worked with in the past.

Having the right people working for you is only half the story, though. Many people make the mistake of hiring them in the wrong order. Always take care of the floor plan first, especially if you want to move your toilet, sink, or tub into a new spot. Once the piping and electrical wiring are laid out, your designer can step in and work around the new floor plan.

Set a budget

Decide how much you are willing to spend on the whole project, and make it clear to your contractor, designer, and anyone else helping you out. This will give them a framework to work around and limit them to choices that you can afford. It is best to have a general project manager who can help you plan out how much money should go into each aspect of the redesign. You should also have an idea of how much work needs to be done and what it will cost. Rearranging fixtures will take more work that just replacing them, and so will redoing the floor, ceiling, and windows.

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