San Rafael has more variety in its housing than almost anywhere else in Marin, and its bathrooms show it. In Terra Linda, many of the Eichler homes still have their original mid-century bathrooms, with a skylight or clerestory window, a flat ceiling with the roof right above it, and plumbing that was never expected to last 70 years. In Gerstle Park and the streets around downtown, the Victorians and craftsman houses often have a bathroom that was squeezed in long after the house was built, sometimes in a converted closet or an enclosed back porch. Up in the hills toward Sun Valley and Dominican, homes built over crawlspaces tend to hide soft subfloors under the tub. And the condos and townhomes along the 101 corridor have their own limits, from shared walls to HOA rules on work hours. Each of these needs a different plan before the first tile comes off.
We remodel bathrooms all over San Rafael, from small hall baths to full primary suites. Most of the work here falls into two camps: a complete bathroom remodel in an older home, or a walk-in shower to replace a tired tub and surround. We also do a fair number of second bathrooms here, where a family has outgrown one shared bath and wants the hall bath to pull its weight. Whatever the project, the first step is the same. Call us, we'll come out and look at the room with you, and you'll get a written estimate that spells out the work, the materials and the cost.
Eichler Bathrooms in Terra Linda
Eichlers are some of the most loved homes in San Rafael, and some of the trickiest bathrooms to remodel. The floor is poured concrete, and the original radiant heat runs through it in a grid of pipes. Moving a toilet or a shower drain means cutting into that slab without nicking a heating line, so we locate the pipes first and plan any drain changes around them. Many Eichler bathrooms also have nowhere obvious to put a vented exhaust fan, since the ceiling is the underside of a flat roof with no attic above it. The fan route takes real thought, and sometimes a wall fan is the cleaner answer. Owners usually want to keep the mid-century look, which pairs well with flat-panel wood vanities, simple stacked tile and plenty of daylight from the original windows. We also pay attention to the original globe lights and mahogany paneling some owners want to save, and we protect them during demolition. The Eichler neighborhoods next door in Lucas Valley share the same construction, so what works in a Terra Linda bathroom generally works there too. For a larger Eichler primary bath, our primary bathroom remodeling page covers the layout side in more detail.
Older Homes Near Downtown and Gerstle Park
In San Rafael's older neighborhoods, the bathroom is often the most altered room in the house. Previous owners added fixtures, moved walls and patched plumbing over a century or more, and it doesn't always line up. Plaster walls, cast-iron drains and the occasional run of knob-and-tube wiring are common once we open things up. We plan for these during the estimate, so a cracked drain or an ungrounded circuit isn't a surprise halfway through the job. Floors in these houses are rarely level, which matters for tile and for a shower that has to drain the right way, so we level the subfloor before anything goes down. Old clawfoot tubs turn up here too. Some owners keep and refinish them, and we plan the plumbing so a freestanding tub and a separate shower can share the room. Smaller rooms are the norm, which is why many Gerstle Park homeowners go with a tub-to-shower conversion to gain floor space without moving walls. Addresses inside city limits get permitted through San Rafael's own building division, and we take care of the application and every inspection along the way.