Bathroom Remodel Standstill

For more than a year now, we've been wanting to remodel our master bathroom. I only call it a master bathroom because it is closest to our bedroom. Otherwise it is a pretty modest bathroom that was built in the 70's by the owners before us as part of an addition to the original house.

Here are the reasons we want to remodel:

• We don't find the blank and yellow tile appealing
• The tiled linoleum floor is pretty ugly and doesn't match anything else
• The shower door is cracked and leaking
  
• The shower base and door is pretty dirty and really hard to clean
• We want to upgrade from 1 to 2 sinks
• We want to raise the shower head
• We want to have 2 electrical outlets instead of 1
  

We first approached this remodel like we did our kitchen remodel which we did successfully a few years ago. We got an estimate on cabinets from a local kitchen store and then got a quote from a contractor that the store referred us to. The estimate was $7500. All we had to do was select and order all the parts, e.g. tile, mirrors, faucets, toilet, etc. and this guy would come and install everything. The problem is that we suck at picking out parts. We went to a few stores and couldn't really decide on what we wanted. We kind of forgot about the bathroom for a while.

Then a few months ago, our interest in the bathroom returned since it is so hard to clean. We decided that it might be worth paying more for someone to design and manage the whole thing since we are usually busy at work and can't be home to manage contractors. While shopping at the Great Indoors, we found that they offered such a service. We began the process with them which included a designer and a project manager that came to our house to talk it over with us and take measurements. For some reason, it took them several weeks to get the designs final and we grew frustrated. It didn't help that their quote was over $22,000. That was more than we wanted to spend. We ended up not following through.

Since then I've called two other contractors to get quotes. One I found as spam in my email box and the other I found in the local paper. The first one told me on the phone that the cost would be $30,000 to $80,000 depending on how nice I wanted it. I quickly told the guy that it was above my budget. The other person came to my house to do an estimate. This morning, he came back to explain his proposal and to give me his quote which was around $30,000. I don't get it. Why does it cost $30,000 to do a modest bathroom remodel?

My parents and even some neighbors have told me that it should cost around $6000-$7500. I would feel stupid if I spent $30,000 and then found out later that I really could have had the same work done for much less. We didn't even spend $15,000 to remodel our kitchen.

So as of now, I don't know what I'll be doing. It may be a long time before we get the bathroom remodel we want.