When talks of renovations start filling the air, bathrooms are often high on the priority list. And it makes perfect sense to allocate dollars here. After all, the bathroom’s increasingly become a space for self-care and relaxation, and it’s also where people spend a good chunk of time preparing for the day and then, later, unwinding.
The just-released 2026 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study confirms this, but it also made an interesting shift in how homeowners are prioritizing their bathroom renovation budgets. Specifically, there’s one spot homeowners are suddenly making way bigger. We’re diving into the findings below and sharing the average bathroom renovation cost, per the survey.
The Bathroom Feature That’s Getting a Lot More Spacious
The bathroom feature getting the supersize treatment is showers. Nearly half (49%) of all recent bathroom renovations included enlarging the shower. That’s up 10 percentage points from last year, according to the Houzz study, which surveyed 1,619 homeowners who had either completed a bathroom renovation within the past 12 months or planned to start one within the next three months.
And homeowners aren’t just adding a few extra inches. The data found that 16% made their shower significantly larger, 19% went larger, and 23% opted for a somewhat roomier setup. Most of the rest stuck with roughly the same footprint, while a mere 2% actually downsized their shower.
And the feature that’s getting the bathroom boot to make room for the shower? The bathtub. The study found that 79% of homeowners use their newfound space to specifically enlarge the shower.
How Much Bathroom Renovations Cost Today
This all begs the question of how much a bathroom renovation costs today. Houzz found that the overall median spend in 2025 was $15,000, which is up by a couple thousand from the previous year.
Naturally, the bigger the bathroom footprint and the more ambitious the renovation, the more people spent. Bathrooms that were 100 square feet or larger had a median spend of $30,000, which was up 20% from 2024. The top 10% of projects saw a spend of $75,000 or more. Meanwhile, bathrooms smaller than 100 square feet saw a median renovation budget of $18,000 and topped out at $44,000.
Wendy Rose Gould is a lifestyle journalist who routinely contributes to Real Simple, Martha Stewart, Women’s Health, and House Beautiful, among others. She covers home and garden, wellness, and travel, focusing on thoughtful storytelling and detailed reporting. When not writing, you can catch her perusing thrift stores, singing, hitting the gym, and petting any cat or dog that'll allow it.
