Our story so far: In the midst of the framing and mechanicals phase of renovating the 126-year-old church into our home, we were called upon to make some decisions about the bathrooms.

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Chapter 20

Showers, as it turns out, are expensive. And we planned to have three of them in the church, one on every floor.

Even while discussing the Tequila Budget, we agreed we weren’t going to be tiling our own showers. Oh, we were happy to do demolition, sand the wood floors, install our own kitchen cabinets, but tiling? Forget it.

Tyler and I had attempted a tiling project in our former home, replacing the carpeting (yuck!) in the master bathroom. It turned out OK, but it was difficult work and perfect corners were tricky to accomplish. Perhaps ironically, Tyler was not a tiler. For the church, we knew we wanted an expert to handle the tiling.

Then we saw acrylic showers at a home show, and we were intrigued. No seams to leak, easy to clean and long-lasting. But when we got the quote on the showers—$19,050 plus plumbing and fixtures for all three—we learned they cost as much or more than tiling. The bottom line forced us to confront our means and the end: How much was beauty worth?

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Tomorrow: We explore other options. Read about them here.