Bathroom remodeling in Chicago usually means a small wet room in a bungalow or a stacked bath in a two-flat. Plaster walls, a masonry exterior, and one plumbing stack doing the work for more than one floor are normal. A valve leak becomes the downstairs ceiling. A bath window on an outside brick wall sweats, freezes at the edges, and rots the stool. Start with the leak or the room you cannot use.
A short tub, a narrow door, and a stack that may serve the floor below set the layout before taste does. Mortar-bed tile hides a tired pan. A surround that gapes at the tub rim lets water into plaster that then falls in sheets. If the only window is over the tub, ventilation and cold glass are part of the remodel, not extras. Say whether the room is on an exterior wall.
Fans often dump into the attic, and winter moisture then looks like a roof leak. Say where the duct goes if you have looked. Shutoffs at old angle stops may not stop anything; the real valve may be at the meter or at a shared stack. If closing your water closes another unit, that fact belongs in the first minute of the call. Vintage joists may already be notched.
A full rework in a Chicago bath is access, debris, and plaster repair as much as it is fixtures. The stair and the door decide what can enter the room. Dust in a two-flat is a neighbor problem. Waterproofing the wet wall matters more than the mirror. If you only need a valve, a fan, or a rocking toilet, say that and do not let the call swell into a gut job you did not ask for.
Name bungalow or two-flat, leak or remodel, and whether another floor is already stained. Mention a bath on an outside brick wall if the pane freezes. Say if the stack is shared. Chicago masonry holds damp and shows it late. Call the number on this page.