Are you planning to renovate your bathroom? It’s not as difficult as it might sound, but it is still going to take some time, planning, and a good-sized budget. It’s a great way of giving your home a new feel to it without redoing everything. Remodeling your bathroom can also be helpful for health and safety reasons, such as when it becomes difficult to step up over the bathtub to get in the shower. If you are planning a bathroom renovation, here are a few tips to help you get started.

• Do not try to do it all yourself if you have little or no plumbing experience. The last thing you want is to find your entire house flooded because some of the plumbing wasn’t done correctly. It might cost more, but if you are going to be doing major renovations, it’s worth it to have a licensed plumber guarantee everything is installed correctly.

• Always leave room in the budget for emergencies. This is good advice for every type of remodel, but it is especially important to be able to have a little extra set aside so you can complete your bathroom renovations on time. Otherwise, you may be down a bathroom until you can come up with the extra money, and if it’s your only bathroom, you are going to be very inconvenienced.

• Be realistic. Expanding your bathroom to make it a huge space with a Jacuzzi tub, a separate shower, and a double vanity probably isn’t possible unless you have a very large budget or the bathroom is next to a room you never use. Do not bite off more than you can chew.

• Schedule your renovation for a weekend when you do not have anything else planned. Remember that you may not have access to that bathroom (both toilet and shower) for the entire weekend, especially if you are doing a major renovation. If you’re planning to take out the entire bathroom and redo everything, it could be even longer. Do not schedule your renovation the week before you plan to have company over.

• Do your remodeling in a logical order. If you are going to put in a new tub and replace the floor, do the tub first. Otherwise, you might crack your new tiles or scratch up your new linoleum. Anything that could be damaged should be done after the larger items are in place.

• If you are planning to change the main colors in your bathroom (via changing the flooring and painting), remember to include some money in the budget for buying new towels and other items to match. If you have remodeled your bathroom to be done in shades of blue, your bright yellow towels might not look right anymore.

• Buy everything you will need before you start renovating. While it’s easy to overlook one thing and have to make a trip to the hardware store, it’s another to realize you do not have half of the things you need or to keep realizing your missing things. Multiple trips to buy these items will eat up a lot of time and may throw your whole remodel off-schedule.