Bathroom Renovations Reflect Changing Homeowner Priorities

Homeowners are shifting their approach to bathroom renovations in 2024 with personal comfort and long-term usability increasingly prioritized over resale value considerations.

The latest Houzz U.S. Bathroom Trends Study surveyed more than 1,200 respondents and found that homeowners are putting personal needs first during primary bathroom renovations with those focused on resale value dropping by 5 percentage points (26% in 2024 versus 31% in 2023). Additionally, the share of homeowners renovating to make their space more accommodating increased by 4 points, reaching 27%. 

“Consistent with past Houzz research, homeowners are renovating for the long term, making significant investments in functional spaces like primary bathrooms,” said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz staff economist. “While changes to layouts, shower area, flooring and plumbing may be unsurprising, what stands out is the growing trend towards future-proofing homes for personal use and the needs of loved ones. This shift has pushed resale value considerations further down the priority list, as homeowners focus on comfort and long-term living.”

Regardless of the motivation, investment in primary bathroom projects continues to climb, up 11% from the previous year ($15,000, compared with $13,500 in 2022), with the top 10% of spend starting at $45,000. Reliance on home professionals also remains high, with more than four in five homeowners (83%) hiring professionals to assist with their bathroom renovations. General contractors are hired most frequently (46%). 

Trends in bathroom renovations reflect homeowners’ prioritization of their personal interests: 

Sustainability: More than 4 in 5 homeowners choose sustainable features during primary bathroom renovations (84%). While more than half of homeowners opt for sustainable design because of environmental friendliness (56%), the majority of homeowners are driven by long-term cost effectiveness (69%).

Aging-in-place accommodations: Accommodations for aging household members also support long-term renovation goals. Of the 64% of homeowners addressing special needs with their bathroom renovations, nearly half cite the future needs of aging household members (46%, compared with 37% of homeowners addressing current needs). 

Wet rooms: More than 1 in 8 renovating homeowners characterize their primary bathroom as a wet room (13%). Known for its open-concept design, a wet room typically has minimal to no enclosure separating the shower or tub from the rest of the bathroom. The top motivations for choosing a wet room include better use of space (66%) and universal design (39%). 

Eclectic style: While the top three primary bathroom styles remain transitional (23%), contemporary (16%) and modern (15%), eclectic style has grown in favor (5%), jumping 2 percentage points year over year, and matching the popularity of farmhouse style, which has held steady at 5% since 2019.

Colors: White (50%) and off-white (20%) dominate countertop color preferences, far ahead of gray (9%). Wall colors are seeing a similar trend; white and off-white lead for both shower and nonshower walls, significantly outpacing gray. Surprisingly, white is the dominant choice even for accent walls (22%), while blue and green are gaining ground (17% and 11%, respectively).

“We’ve seen a departure from grays and whites and a shift towards warm tones and the use of texture. A lot of this warmth is brought in through stone products or other materials that give the look and feel of stone,” said Denise Sciametta, general manager of retail showrooms, at Nemo Tile & Stone. “Most people are moving towards practicality, choosing materials that need less maintenance, easier to clean, and long-lasting. We see this a lot in the use of larger formatted tiles which offer less grout cleaning and materials like porcelain, which offer the look and feel of luxury materials like marble and stone without the excess care. Porcelain is also a cost-effective alternative which is a growing desire amongst the younger generation.”

“Biophilia is still in, but we’ve seen more interest in bold, graphic, geometric patterns like stripes,” noted Ariel Schuster, director of design at Artaic. “This factored into why we developed the expansion of our Designs on Demand program, which offers bold repeating patterns in-stock. We’ve also seen a lot of interest in metallics this year, and our 24k gold, silver, waterjet brass, and stainless steel mosaics have made their presence known within our portfolio of installations.”

Built-in vanities continue to be the most popular vanity choice (56%), but the share choosing them has dropped by 5 percentage points year over year. Freestanding vanities, on the other hand, have risen by 5 percentage points and now stand at 31%. Floating vanities follow, chosen by 12%. Solid wood is the top material for upgraded vanities, chosen by 72%, followed by medium-density fiberboard (13%) and plywood (7%). Among wood choices, maple leads at 27%, followed by white oak (21%) and walnut (14%).

For vanity countertops, engineered quartz remains the favorite material, selected by 42% of homeowners, followed by natural stone options: quartzite (20%), granite (15%) and marble (13%).

“It’s still white,” said Amber Shay, VP of design centers at Meritage Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona. “It’s still lots of the quartz countertops with the big, kind of more bold, veining.”

Porcelain and ceramic are the top material choices for flooring outside the shower. Photo: Carl Mattison Design and Daniel Stabler Photography

Flooring

As for new flooring outside the shower, 31% of renovating homeowners prioritize a nonslip surface for safety, while 25% opt for heated flooring.

Porcelain and ceramic are the top material choices for flooring outside the shower, with 35% and 33% of homeowners opting for these materials, respectively. Marble follows distantly (8%), trailed by engineered wood (5%).

 “Customization requests are indicative of the trends in personalization that our clients value, seeking not just quality and sustainability, but also a specific aesthetic that complements their individual style and the architectural details of their spaces,” said Juan Reina, product development at Riva Spain. “There’s a growing trend of using flooring materials for cladding purposes—essentially using wood flooring not just underfoot but also on walls and other surfaces. This approach creates a unified, enveloping aesthetic, sometimes referred to as a ‘cube of wood,’ where the same material wraps around multiple dimensions of a room.”

Shower Trends

Nearly nine in 10 homeowners opt for tile when upgrading their shower flooring and walls (87% and 83%, respectively). Ceramic and porcelain are the most common materials for shower surfaces, though some homeowners opt for marble and acrylic. 

The vast majority of shower wall tiles are rectangular (82%), followed at a distance by square (10%) and hexagonal (2%). When it comes to pattern, over a third choose horizontal brick (34%) and another third install vertical or horizontal stacks (21% and 13%, respectively). Nearly 4 in 5 shower walls (79%) have medium to large scale tiles (6 inches to 18 inches). 

When it comes to shower floors, tile shapes are much more diverse and rectangular (28%), hexagonal (23%) and square (22%) are all popular. Layouts are also varied, led by mosaic (19%), brick (17%) and grid (17%) patterns. In contrast to shower walls, the majority of homeowners opt for small tiles on their shower floor (65%), from 1 inch to 4 inches.