You may remember hearing something horrible about the bathroom once and how, if you can keep your toothbrush in the same room as your toilet, every time you flush your toilet droplets of toilet water go on your toothbrush! Supposedly they say, you might as well be brushing your teeth with toilet water. Naturally, people immediately go out and buy all the materials to redo their bathroom and they build a wall between their toothbrush and the toilet. Well, maybe they aren't that extreme but it does bring up some concerns about the bathroom.

Bathroom remodeling is a major industry these days. The question is, is it really necessary? Everyone seems to be into tearing their house apart and putting it back together again, usually starting with the bathroom or the most inconvenient place possible. Is it possible to have a simple bathroom that is pleasing to all members of the family without investing enough to put several kids through college? I set out to find out. Here are some great remodelling tips:

1 Shower/Tub: Try cleaning these parts of the bathroom first. If you have to buy a new one, don't spend more than 200 bucks.

2 Toilet: If it works in the bathroom, don't fix it. If it doesn't, replace it.

3 Sink: If it's cracked, keep it under $150 tops.

4 Vanity: You can usually fix up your bathroom with a nice one from Home Depot or Lowes at a very low cost.

5 Lighting: Recessed lights are always very important in the bathroom

6 Floor: Try linoleum for most bathroom floors as it cleans up easily.

7 Painting: The cheapest remodel of all for your bathroom is to slap a new coat of paint on it.

So, is remodeling your bathroom really about replacing things that don't work anymore or is it more about changing something in your life to make you feel better about yourself? For that matter, isn't home remodeling in general all about that?

Taking a wider view, bathrooms go back to before the Roman empire and everyone knows abut the Roman baths which were great big pools of water where the whole community bathed together. For them it was a social occasion: time to discuss the events of the day and so forth. In places like England and Europe it's not even a bathroom; it's a water closet or the loo, and it doesn't always include all these luxurious fixtures you find in a bathroom in America. Sink, toilet, and bathtub/shower all in the bathroom together is mostly an American invention, it turns out. Not that I don't think it's a good one.

Truth is, my current bathroom is in three different rooms: toilet in one, shower in another, sink outside of both. It's not always as convenient as I'd like. I'm always wrapping myself in a towel to go from one room to the next. But I think I'll stick with the current arrangement; remodeling my bathroom as a route to reinventing myself sounds expensive. At least my toothbrush isn't in the bathroom with my toilet. There's really nothing to worry about as long as you keep your toilet clean enough.