Renovating to stay in your home: costs and a checklist

What people change

The bathroom is where most of this happens. In the Houzz 2026 Bathroom Trends Study (30 September 2026, 1,619 US homeowners with a recent or planned project), 49% enlarged the shower, up 10 points in a year; 26% removed a tub, and when the tub came out, 79% used the space to enlarge the shower. Wet rooms appeared in 18% of renovated bathrooms, up from 13% two years earlier, and the two reasons given most were better use of space (41%) and accessibility or universal design (40%, up 14 points).

Architects see the same shift from the other side. In the AIA Home Design Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2026 (report dated 26 August 2026, a panel of hundreds of residential firms), the features gaining most were accommodation for multiple generations, first-floor primary suites and wider doorways and hallways, with net scores of 53, 52 and 47, each higher than a year earlier. The AIA figures are net scores, the share of firms saying a feature is gaining minus the share saying it is fading, so they measure momentum rather than how many homes have the feature. Ramps and elevators (31) and on-grade entries (28) slipped slightly in the same report, which we read as demand for homes that work without visible aids.

Kitchen and bath professionals surveyed by the NKBA already treat this as mainstream: 32% called aging in place mainstream and 48% approaching mainstream in the 2026 Bath Trends Report (November 2025, about 700 professionals), as reported by Floor Daily on 24 November 2025; the full report is paywalled.

What it costs

The difference between the two modelled bathrooms, about $16,000, is what Zonda's model attaches to the universal design scope compared with the midrange one. The homeowner medians sit below both modelled figures because they include every bathroom project Houzz users reported, not only full remodels. Use the Houzz figures to see what people spend and the Cost vs Value figures to see what a defined scope costs.

A ground-floor primary suite is the most expensive item on this list by a wide margin and returns least at resale. That is not an argument against it. Cost vs Value measures resale, and the point of this work is to avoid selling. It is an argument for designing it once, properly, because at $170,517 there is no cheap second attempt.

A design checklist

These are the moves that make a house work for longer. Where a code figure appears it is from the 2021 International Residential Code (ICC, Chapter 3); check with your local building department, because local amendments vary.

• Doorways and hallways. Wider doorways and hallways were the third strongest gaining feature on the AIA panel in the second quarter of 2026 (net score 47). Widening a door in a non-structural partition is contractor work. Widening one in a load-bearing wall needs an engineer.
• Entry. A step-free entry means regrading, a ramp or a platform at the door. If a ramp is more than a few feet long, run it through the stair and ramp checker, which has a ramp mode, to see the gradient and the landings it needs.
• Curbless shower. The floor has to drain without a step, which makes it a floor-structure detail as much as a tiling one. Settle it at the design stage, before the plumber is on site.
• Shower and bathroom ceiling height. Bathrooms and toilet rooms need at least 6 feet 8 inches, and a shower needs 6 feet 8 inches over a 30 by 30 inch area at the showerhead (ICC, 2021 IRC R305.1). This bites when a bathroom is being fitted under a stair or into a converted space.
• A bedroom on the ground floor. A new sleeping room needs an operable emergency escape and rescue opening (R310.1) and at least 70 square feet with 7 feet in each horizontal direction (R304). A former dining room or study only becomes a bedroom under the code if its window meets that requirement.
• The wet room. Houzz found wet rooms in 18% of renovated bathrooms in 2025 (30 September 2026). A wet room moves the waterproofing from a shower tray to the whole floor and the lower walls, so get in writing who is responsible for the waterproofing detail before work starts.

When you need an architect

Most of the bathroom moves above are a contractor's job once the design is settled. The architect question arrives in three places.

1. When walls move. Widening doors, combining a small bathroom with a closet to make room to turn a wheelchair, or opening a hallway all run into the question of what is load-bearing. The engineer answers it; the architect decides what to do with the answer.
2. When a suite is added. A primary suite addition is foundations, roof, structure and services. In California, unlicensed persons may design wood-frame single-family work but “may not design any component that changes or affects the safety of any building, including but not limited to structural or seismic components” (California Architects Board, Consumer's Guide). Other states' exemptions narrow at the same point.
3. When the house has to work in ten years as well as now. A contractor prices the room in front of them. An architect is the person whose job is to ask where the bedroom goes when the stairs become difficult, and to make the bathroom being drawn today part of that answer.

Only 8% of renovating US homeowners hired an architect in 2025, the same share as hired an interior designer (Houzz, 8 Home Remodeling Trends to Watch in 2026). For a single bathroom that is probably right. For a house being reorganised to be lived in for another twenty years, the drawing is cheaper than the second renovation.