Small bathroom remodel cost: what fits a 5x8 bathroom

A small bathroom, the classic 5x8 hall bath, usually sits toward the low end of what Portland-area remodels cost: $7,700 to $35,000 with materials, with $15,100 as the typical job (market data, November 2026) . Keeping the tub and the pipes where they are, a refresh is $1,500 to $7,000. The size of the room moves the price less than three things: tub or shower, plumbing that moves, and the condition of the floor.

What we take on in a bathroom, and how to book it, is on our bathroom remodel page. I'm Slava, and this guide is only about the small ones. I have 7 years of hands-on experience in this work.

How much does a small bathroom remodel cost around Portland?

A small bathroom near Portland costs $1,500 to $7,000 for a refresh, $1,600 to $8,400 to trade the tub for a shower, and $7,700 to $35,000 for a full remodel, all with materials. The sheet we work from prices each job per bathroom. It has no column for size, so a 5x8 gets read against these rows, not scaled down from them.

Small bathroom, by scope (Portland-area market data, November 2026, per bathroom, with materials)

My read for a 5x8: a full remodel tends to land under that $15,100 figure, unless the plan has a tiled shower, floor repair or a toilet in a new spot . National cost pages for small bathrooms print lower numbers, because they average in cheaper labour markets. The same three scopes for a bathroom of any size are laid out in our bathroom remodel cost guide.

What is a 5x8 bathroom, and what fits in it?

A 5x8 bathroom is 40 square feet, and it's the usual hall-bath shape for one plain reason: a standard alcove tub is 60 inches long, the same as the room is wide. So the tub runs across the short end, and the toilet and vanity share one long wall.

Do the floor math and the room gets smaller fast. A 60 by 30 inch tub (some are about 32 deep) covers 12.5 of those 40 square feet. That leaves a bit under 30 square feet of floor to tile, and part of that sits under the toilet and the vanity.

Vanities for that long wall usually come 24, 30 or 36 inches wide. Going wider buys counter and drawer room, but you pay for it in space beside the toilet and where the door swings.

A 5x7 often has a shorter tub or just a shower. A 5x10 gives room for a wider vanity or a linen cabinet. A half bath has no tub at all, so its cost is mostly the toilet, vanity, floor and paint.

Cedar Hills has a lot of 1950s-60s tract houses, and Cedar Mill's houses are mostly 1960s-70s. Hall baths with the tub across the end are common in houses of that age .

Why doesn't a small bathroom cost proportionally less?

A small bathroom doesn't cost proportionally less because most of the work is counted per fixture, not per square foot. A 40-square-foot room needs one toilet, one vanity, one fan and one mirror, just like a big one.

Jobs a bathroom needs once, whatever its size (Portland-area market data, November 2026, labour only, fixtures and materials not included)

At the market sheet's typical figures, those six jobs add up to about $2,600 of labour ($338 + $700 + $550 + $500 + $250 + $250 = $2,588), and not one tile or fixture has been bought yet. That's roughly a third of the $7,700 where full remodels start, and it stays the same in a tiny room . The toilet line is the same work our faucets, toilets and sinks page covers.

What does shrink with the room is the floor and the paint. Floor tile runs $800 to $2,000 to $4,000 per job, and painting one room runs $400 to $800 to $1,700, both with materials. A floor under 30 square feet should price near the bottom of the tile row . Every job we price is listed on one page, our pricing page.

Keep the tub or switch to a shower: what does each cost in a small bathroom?

Keeping the tub is the cheaper path: a worn surround can be repaired for $300 to $700 to $1,500, labour only, or the tub simply stays put inside a refresh . That's the kind of job our bathroom refresh page describes.

Trading the tub for a shower runs $1,600 to $3,200 to $8,400 with materials. In a 5x8, a 60-inch shower base drops into the old tub alcove. The shower keeps the tub's footprint and its drain spot, and that's why this swap can come in well under a full remodel. More on that job is on our tub-to-shower conversion page.

One thing to weigh first: if it's the only tub in the house, think about who lives there now and who might buy later. Families with small kids, and some buyers, want a tub to bathe in.

A grab bar is a small add while the walls are open: $200 to $300 to $350 per job with materials . See grab bars and aging in place.

Which choices push a small bathroom remodel up the range?

The wet area is usually the biggest single cost in a small bathroom: the shower or tub walls, the base, and the waterproofing behind them. After that, the money goes wherever a wall or the floor has to be opened. In a small room, these are the choices that do it:

• Moving the toilet. The drain moves, so the floor comes up. Over a crawl space the pipes are reached from below. On a slab, someone cuts concrete.
• A wall-hung vanity. The wall opens for blocking, and the drain and supply lines move up or back.
• A pocket door to win back swing space. The wall opens, and that wall may already carry pipes or wires.
• A tiled shower instead of a one-piece surround. More hours, plus a waterproof layer behind every tile.
• A recessed niche. It's a box cut into a stud bay, and it needs waterproofing too.

A lot of west-side houses sit over crawl spaces, so a toilet drain that has to move is often reachable from underneath, without breaking concrete . Moving plumbing or wiring brings permits; our permit guide covers which ones.

Can you redo a small bathroom for $5,000, or for $10,000?

Yes, $5,000 can redo a small bathroom if the tub stays, and $10,000 reaches the lower part of a full remodel. Here's how those two budgets line up with the market rows.

The budget that goes furthest in a 5x8 keeps every fixture where it is. Once a drain moves, the $5,000 plan turns into a $10,000 one.

What turns up under a small bathroom floor, and what does it add?

The usual find is old water damage around the toilet and along the tub's edge, and in a small budget a single repair takes a big bite. Subfloor repair runs $500 to $1,200 to $3,000, labour only. Cleaning a small patch of surface mould on a wall runs $250 to $500 to $1,000, labour only .

Put the typical $1,200 subfloor fix next to the $7,700 entry point for a full remodel: it's about one-sixth. That's why a small job needs a reserve just as much as a big one .

Our wet winters and crawl spaces help here. A slow leak at the toilet usually shows from below first, as a dark or soft spot on the subfloor. Ask whoever quotes the job to look from the crawl space before they price it . A small room also holds shower steam, so a fan that doesn't actually pull air is what slowly rots that floor in this climate.

Does an older west-side house change what a small bathroom costs?

It does: the year the house was built tells you which old materials need dealing with before anything comes out, and that's a separate line on the bill.

For houses built before 1978, we don't disturb painted surfaces; that's on our what we don't do page, and our lead paint guide explains how the rules read. Plenty of Cedar Hills tract houses still have bathrooms of original age .

Old sheet vinyl, old floor tile and textured ceilings are another flag. We don't remove asbestos, so get those materials tested before anyone tears them out.

Then measure the toilet rough-in, the distance from the finished wall to the centre of the drain. Most toilets are made for 12 inches. Some older houses have 10 or 14, and that narrows the choice, so measure before you buy one .