Bathroom Remodeling in Chatham, MA

Old Village half-Capes, Shore Road shingle houses, North Chatham ranches, Pleasant Bay contemporaries — Chatham bathrooms are asked to do more than almost anywhere else on the Cape.

On Cape Kitchens has been remodeling bathrooms in Chatham for more than 30 years, working out of a design office and showroom at Unit #7, 4250 State Highway in North Eastham. Owner and designer Vern Hatt is a Massachusetts licensed and insured contractor (Construction Supervisor License #CS62739, Home Improvement Contractor License #177590) and runs every project personally, which means the person who drew your layout is the person who answers the phone when a vanity arrives damaged.

Chatham's housing runs from eighteenth and nineteenth century half-Capes and full Capes in the Old Village, through the big shingled summer houses along Shore Road and Bridge Street, to post-war ranches in North Chatham and West Chatham and contemporary houses looking over Pleasant Bay and Ryder's Cove. Almost none of them were built with the bathroom anyone wants now, and a good remodel starts by understanding which of those houses you have.

We take on as much or as little as the project calls for: a vanity and top supplied only, a single failing shower rebuilt properly, or a full gut with demolition, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, tile, fixtures and finish carpentry. In a town where a great many houses earn rental income between June and September, the planning conversation and the construction window are two different seasons, and we plan accordingly.

Many Chatham bathrooms sit in houses that predate indoor plumbing by a century. In the Old Village and along the older lanes the bathroom was inserted after the fact into whatever space could be spared — a borrowed corner of a chamber, a hall end, a closet, the low space beside a chimney. What that produces is a room of thirty-five or forty square feet, a ceiling that does something unhelpful, and a door that opens across the only wall long enough to take a vanity.

Working well in a room like that comes down to a few decisions, most of them made before anything is ordered:

• The door is usually the answer. Re-hanging it to swing outward, or replacing it with a pocket door, typically returns six to nine square feet of usable floor. Nothing else available in a small room comes close.
• Let the tub go if it has become somewhere to keep shampoo. A tiled walk-in shower in the identical footprint changes both how the room looks and how it gets used.
• Get the vanity off the floor. Wall-hung and leg-supported pieces let the tile run through underneath, and a small room reads by the floor it shows rather than by its dimensions.
• Build storage into the wall rather than onto it. Recessed cabinets and shower niches take their depth from the stud bay.
• Size down deliberately. A 30-inch vanity with clearance around it works. A 36-inch one touching both walls does not.

Behind the plaster there is usually a history to deal with: knob-and-tube runs left live, plumbing from three different eras spliced together, a bare exterior wall cavity, and joists never sized to carry a filled cast iron tub. We open the wall, look, and price what is actually there rather than writing an optimistic proposal and coming back with change orders.

A large share of Chatham houses earn money between the end of June and Labor Day, and a large share of Chatham owners are somewhere else for part of the year. Both of those facts shape how a bathroom project has to be run, and we have been running them that way for a long time.

The practical version: design and selections happen in late summer and fall, ordering happens while lead times are short, and construction happens between October and May when the house is empty and the trades are available. A bathroom started in November is finished long before the first booking. A bathroom started in May is a problem for everyone.

For owners who are off-Cape during construction, we work the way that requires: photographs at each stage rather than a written report nobody reads, decisions requested in batches instead of one at a time, samples shipped or held at the showroom for a visit, and a key or lockbox arrangement with one company in the house rather than five subcontractors letting themselves in independently. Vern is on the job site, which is the part that matters when you are four hours away.

The most common request we get in Chatham after a straight remodel is another bathroom — an ensuite off the primary bedroom, a second full bath upstairs, or a powder room on the first floor of a house that has none. Space is usually findable: an oversized closet, the end of a hallway, part of a bedroom that is larger than it needs to be, or a landing.

The question that comes with it is septic. Under Title V, design flow is calculated on the number of bedrooms, not the number of bathrooms, so adding a bath to a four-bedroom house does not by itself change your septic calculation. Converting a den, a bonus room or a finished attic into a bedroom as part of the same project does. Whether your street is on town sewer changes the conversation entirely.

We flag that at the start rather than in week three. A septic upgrade discovered midway through a project is the most expensive surprise in Cape Cod remodeling, and it is almost always avoidable with one conversation at the design stage.

Vanity finishes photograph nothing like they look in a north-facing Chatham bathroom in November, and drawer hardware feels fine in a picture and cheap in your hand. We keep JSI vanities on display at the North Eastham showroom, alongside U.S. Cabinet Depot and Forevermark, plus countertop samples, sinks, faucets and hardware. You can put a door sample against your tile, compare hinge and glide quality between price levels, and see the new Fall 2026 Haven Sage finish in daylight.

Consultations are free, whether at your Chatham home or at our showroom at Unit #7, 4250 State Highway in North Eastham, next to Ace Hardware. Bring photos and measurements if you have them; if you do not, we will take them.

Or send us an email to schedule  ·  Monday–Friday 8:00 AM–5:00 PM, Saturday by appointment