Bathrooms are the smallest rooms we remodel and the ones with the most trades in them. Demolition, plumbing, electrical, subfloor, waterproofing, tile, fixtures, cabinetry, paint and trim all happen in a room you can barely turn around in, and they have to happen in an order. When a bathroom remodel in La Crosse runs long, it is almost never because any one job was slow. It is because the sequence was wrong and somebody was waiting.
This is the order we run a full bathroom remodel in, what each step involves, and which parts are done by the licensed trades we bring in.
What we handle, and what licensed trades handle
Our full room remodel service takes a bathroom end to end: demolition and disposal, subfloor, waterproofing, tile on floors and walls, the vanity and counter, the flooring, the painting and the trim, with one written fixed-price scope and one point of contact. Plumbing and electrical are done by licensed plumbers and electricians we bring in and coordinate, which is how it should be done and how it has to be done for the permits. What we do not do is structural work: moving a load-bearing wall, changing the footprint or adding on.
Step one: decide the layout before anything is touched
The single biggest fork in a bathroom remodel is whether the plumbing moves. If the toilet, sink and shower stay roughly where they are, the plumbing is connection work and the floor and walls stay largely closed. If the toilet moves, the drain has to be re-run within the floor framing to keep its fall to the stack, which opens the floor and often the ceiling below. Sinks and showers are far more forgiving.
So the layout is settled first, on paper, with the plumber’s input, before a single tile is chosen. A layout that keeps the toilet where it is and moves everything else around it is frequently the version that buys most of the change for a fraction of the cost.
Step two: demolition, and what La Crosse houses hide
Everything comes out down to the studs and subfloor. This is when the house tells you what it has been keeping quiet about.
In the older La Crosse neighborhoods, the Cass and King Street district, Weigent-Hogan and the streets around them, the housing runs from the late 1800s into the 1940s, and bathrooms there were added or rebuilt more than once. The common finds are a board subfloor rather than plywood, cast iron drains, galvanized supply lines that are due for replacement anyway, tile set in a mortar bed over wire lath, and a previous remodel where new tile went over old. In the newer housing of Onalaska and Holmen the demolition holds fewer surprises, and the finds are usually a shower pan that has been weeping into the subfloor for years and a fan that vents into the attic.
None of this is visible on the walkthrough, which is why we quote bathrooms with a written contingency for what is behind the walls rather than a flat number that pretends the substrate is fine.
Step three: rough plumbing and electrical
With the room open, the licensed plumber runs or reconnects supply and drain to the new layout, sets the shower valve and the drain, and replaces what needs replacing. The licensed electrician runs the circuits the new bathroom needs: a proper fan on its own switch or timer, lighting at the mirror rather than one fixture in the ceiling, receptacles where they are used, and the dedicated circuit for a heated floor if one is in the plan.
Permits and inspections happen here. Plumbing and electrical work in La Crosse County and across the river require permits and inspection through the local building department, and the licensed trades pull them as part of their work. The rough-in inspection has to pass before the walls close.
Step four: subfloor, cement board and waterproofing
This is the part of the price that buys you nothing you can see, and the part that decides whether the bathroom is still sound in fifteen years.
The subfloor is repaired or replaced where the demolition found damage, and stiffened where a board subfloor is going to carry tile. Cement board or an equivalent tile substrate goes on the floor and the wet walls. Then the shower is waterproofed as a system: a sloped base, a membrane on the walls and floor lapped and detailed at every corner and at the curb, tied to the drain. Tile and grout are not waterproof and never were. They are the wearing surface over the thing that is.
When a bathroom quote is unusually low, this is where to look. It is invisible, it is skippable, and skipping it is how a five-year-old bathroom ends up with a rotten floor. Tile and stone in the Coulee Region covers what belongs under tile in more detail.
Step five: tile
Shower walls, then the floor, then any accent or backsplash. Tile has curing time between setting and grouting and again before it can be walked on or sealed, and that time cannot be compressed. It is the step that most often sets the length of the job. Our tile and stone service covers the installation, and the choice of large-format tile versus mosaic on a shower floor, or porcelain versus natural stone anywhere, is made at the estimate with samples in the room.
Step six: the flooring decision
Not every bathroom floor is tile, and the choice deserves its own moment. Tile is the durable, fully waterproof, heated-floor-friendly answer and it is what most full remodels get. Luxury vinyl plank is a genuine alternative in a family bath or a basement bath: the plank itself is waterproof, it is warmer underfoot without a heating system, and it goes in faster. Waterproof flooring for Wisconsin basements and mudrooms covers what waterproof actually means for the different products, and our LVP page covers the product. What we would not put in a bathroom is laminate or hardwood, whatever the label says.
Step seven: fixtures, vanity and glass
The plumber returns to set the toilet, the faucet, the shower trim and the drain fittings once the tile is in and cured. The vanity and counter go in, which is a cabinetry and countertop job, and the shower glass is measured after the tile is done because it is made to fit the finished opening. Glass lead time is one of the two items that most often decides the finish date, along with the vanity if it is custom, so both are ordered before demolition, not after.
Step eight: paint and trim
Walls and ceiling are painted in a bathroom-rated finish that tolerates humidity, then the baseboard, casing and any millwork go in and get painted last. The order is the same as any room, covered in paint before or after new floors, and because our painting and finish carpentry are part of the same scope, there is no waiting for a second contractor to come back for the trim.
Ventilation, which is its own step
Wisconsin winters put real humidity into a bathroom with nowhere to go. The two faults we find most are a fan that was never sized for the room and a fan that vents into the attic, which deposits the moisture somewhere it cannot escape. Both get fixed during the remodel, with a fan sized for the room, ducted outside, on a timer. It is cheap while the ceiling is open and awkward afterward.
How long it takes
Several weeks for a full remodel, and the schedule is set by curing times, inspections and lead times rather than by labor. If it is the only bathroom in the house, that constraint is worth planning around before demolition day. We give you a realistic sequence with the inspection points and the lead-time items marked, and the material is ordered before the room is opened so the house is not torn apart waiting on a delivery.
Getting a real number
We quote bathrooms as a fixed-price scope with the plumbing decision, the substrate contingency, the waterproofing system and the trades written out, so you can see which parts of the price are the room you chose and which are the condition of the house. We remodel bathrooms across La Crosse, Onalaska, Holmen and the surrounding region. A free in-home estimate starts with the layout question and a look at what is likely behind the walls.