Bathroom Remodeling in Millburn, NJ
Millburn spans enough housing types that the bathroom conversation changes street to street: an original 1930s hall bath near the station is a different job from a 1990s primary bathroom that is simply out of date.
- NJ HIC Reg. #13VH12107200
- Based in Irvington
- 14+ years in North Jersey
Millburn Township's housing runs from prewar houses on tight lots near the village center to substantial homes toward South Mountain and throughout Short Hills. A third of the stock predates 1940 and the median build year is 1954, so bathroom projects here span roughly seventy years of construction practice.
- Median year built
- 1954of 7,436 housing units
- Built before 1940
- 33.4%62.9% before 1960
- Single-family detached
- 78.8%89.1% in 1–4 unit buildings
- Owner-occupied
- 81.3%9.33 sq mi, Essex County
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates. Figures describe Millburn township, Essex County, NJ.
Three eras, three kinds of project
Prewar bathrooms in the older housing are typically a single hall bath of 40 to 50 square feet, tile set into a mortar bed over plaster with no membrane behind it, a cast iron tub in an alcove. When these fail it is slow and invisible, and by the time tile is loose the assembly has been passing water for years.
Postwar bathrooms from the 1950s and 60s are more standard: 5-by-8 rooms, conventional alcove dimensions, drywall or rock lath, copper supply. Usually sound and simply dated.
Bathrooms from the 1980s and 90s are their own category and increasingly the ones we are asked to redo. Large primary bathrooms of that era typically feature a corner soaking tub occupying a quarter of the room, a small separate shower, and a lot of surface that has not aged well. The tub is almost never used. Removing it and rebuilding the footprint as a proper shower is one of the best value changes available in this town.
What we handle in a Millburn bathroom
Full remodels, shower rebuilds, walk-in showers, tile, vanities and accessible layouts, with the plumbing, electrical and framing that goes with them. We work to a designer's drawing where one exists. Permits filed with the township.
A corner tub nobody uses is 30 square feet you already own. Worth talking about what else it could be.
Call (862) 218-7292Walk-In Showers in Millburn
Where a 1990s corner tub comes out, the resulting footprint often allows a shower far larger than a standard alcove: room for a bench, two shower heads, a proper niche and a hand shower on a slide bar. That also means more waterproofing detail, since a large low-curb wet area has more corners and transitions to get right than a small enclosed stall. Most of these houses have basements, which makes a curbless entry achievable by recessing the shower floor from below. A linear drain lets the floor slope in one plane. See walk-in showers.
Full Bathroom Remodels in Millburn
In prewar houses, once the wet wall has to come out, doing the whole room is generally better value than doing it in stages, because the demolition, containment, permits and waterproofing are already happening. That is also the moment to replace galvanized supply lines and repair subfloor at the flange. In 1980s and 90s bathrooms a full remodel is more about reorganizing a badly used footprint than repairing failure. Three to four weeks with the layout unchanged, longer where fixtures move. See full bathroom remodeling.
Shower Remodeling in Millburn
Rebuilding a shower means going back to the studs in the wet area, repairing what the framing needs, and installing a sloped pan with a continuous bonded waterproof membrane detailed at every corner, at the curb and at the drain, before backer and tile. The valve gets replaced with a pressure-balancing or thermostatic type; a thermostatic valve is what allows a fixed head and a hand shower to run together, and that has to be specified at rough-in. See shower remodeling.
Bathroom Tile in Millburn
Substrate first. Prewar floors flex more than a rigid tile assembly tolerates, so an added plywood layer or an uncoupling membrane is usually necessary; postwar floors are generally more cooperative and take large-format tile with less preparation. Large-format wall tile means fewer grout lines and a flatter substrate requirement. On a shower floor, slip resistance matters more than appearance, and small-format tile provides grip through the grout lines themselves. Movement joints take flexible sealant, not grout. See bathroom tile.
Bathroom Vanities in Millburn
Primary bathrooms here often have the width for a 60-inch or larger double vanity, which is where two sinks genuinely work rather than producing two cramped bowls. Below 60 inches, a single sink with generous counter is the better room. Wall-mounted vanities show floor beneath and make a room feel larger, and they need solid blocking in the wall installed at rough-in plus plumbing positioned to stay hidden behind the cabinet. See bathroom vanities.
Bathtub Replacement in Millburn
In prewar houses, cast iron is the standard find and it is genuinely good, though getting one out of a second-floor bathroom usually means breaking it up in place. Expect the surround to come with the tub, since the tile laps the flange and matching old tile is not realistic. Where a house has several bathrooms, keeping one bathing tub and converting the others to showers is usually the right allocation. See bathtub replacement.
Accessible Bathroom Remodeling in Millburn
Larger bathrooms give real room to build in accessibility properly: a curbless entry, a shower usable seated or with assistance, clear floor beside the toilet, and a wider doorway. In a two-story house the staircase is the underlying constraint, and where a first-floor powder room exists, expanding it into a full bathroom is sometimes the more useful project. Blocking for grab bars costs almost nothing during any remodel. See accessible bathroom remodeling.
Permits and inspections in Millburn
Millburn Township's Building Department issues and inspects construction permits for Millburn and Short Hills addresses alike, under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code. Bathroom work altering plumbing or electrical requires one. Adding a bathroom involves new drainage and venting and is a more involved permit than remodeling an existing room.
Township of Millburn, Building Department
- Department: Building Department
- Address: 375 Millburn Avenue, Millburn, NJ 07041
- Phone: 973-564-7085
Contact details verified September 2026. Permit requirements depend on your specific scope of work and can change, so the department above is the authority on what your project needs, not this page.
Where we work in Millburn
Across the township, around Millburn center and the station, the Wyoming and Glenwood sections, up toward South Mountain, and throughout Short Hills.
Bathroom work in Millburn
One room or several. Tell us which bathrooms and what era the house is.
Where Millburn sits, and where we work
Millburn Township covers about nine square miles of Essex County, including Short Hills, bordered by Maplewood, Springfield, Union, Livingston, Summit and South Orange.
Millburn boundary map not yet published.
Import maps/kml/millburn-nj.kml into Google My Maps, then paste the embed URL into
src/_data/locations/millburn-nj.json.
Township of Millburn covers about 9.33 square miles of Essex County. Boundary drawn from U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line data.
Bathroom questions from Millburn homeowners
Do Short Hills permits go through Millburn?
Yes. Short Hills is a section of Millburn Township, not a separate municipality, so bathroom permits for a Short Hills address are issued and inspected by the Millburn Township Building Department.
We have three bathrooms that all need work. How should we sequence that?
Almost always one at a time, or at most two with one always left working. Doing all three at once consolidates the trades and deliveries but leaves the house without a bathroom, which is not workable for most families. Sequencing them back to back keeps most of the efficiency and keeps you showering at home.
Our 1990s primary bathroom has a huge corner tub nobody uses. Options?
Removing it is one of the most satisfying changes available in a bathroom of that era. That corner tub typically occupies 25 to 30 square feet and gets used twice a year. Converting the footprint into a genuinely large walk-in shower, or a shower plus real storage, transforms the room. The plumbing work is moderate since the drain is already in the vicinity.
What is likely behind the walls in an older Millburn house?
Plaster over lath, framing that has settled and is not square, tile set into a mortar bed with no waterproof membrane behind it, and possibly galvanized supply lines that have closed up internally. The framing itself is usually excellent, which means repairs tend to be localized rather than extensive.
Can a bathroom be added on the second floor?
Often, given the size of many of these houses. The deciding factor is drainage: whether a new drain can reach the existing stack with proper fall and be vented correctly, and whether the joist direction lets the pipe run without compromising anything structural. It needs looking at before planning around it, but it is a common project here.
Call about your Millburn project
Hall bath, primary bath or the whole floor. Tell us which rooms and roughly when the house was built.