After 11 years of living in my house, I was finally going to renovate my master bathroom. Over the years, I’d periodically slip into bathroom and tile shops, admiring all their wares, but now it was finally going to happen.
With no previous bathroom renovation experience, but having completed a short course in Interior Design, I decided I would make all the bathroom selections myself and find a builder to manage the renovation.
Gathering Inspiration and Design
Before Renvoation
I visited a number of shops and resellers. I 100% recommend visiting Schott’s in Clifton Hill for inspiration. You can walking through the entire store and admire not only their bathroom supplies, but everything else as well.
I also visited National Tiles, Beaumont, Reece, Kalessi Bathrooms and Highgrove Bathrooms to name a few.
I took home samples of tiles and tapware or ordered them from online retailers and started forming ideas about what design direction I wanted to go. (OK after thinking about it for 10 years I already had some ideas!)
Floorplanning
Reece has a great free 3D Bathroom Planner on their website.
I spent hours trying to create the perfect floorplan.
My bathroom was only 1.8 x 2 metres, and I needed to fit a shower, a vanity, and a toilet. I really wanted a larger vanity than my current 900mm. I was craving extra bench space and storage.
Sometimes, though, you just have to accept that no amount of creative floorplanning will make your bathroom larger, especially with budget constraints.
Once I finalised the floorplan, with the biggest change being losing the in-shower bath to just a shower it was time to finalise my selections.
Schedule and Mood Board
From my Interior Design course, I knew how to create a bathroom schedule and mood board and was keen to use my new skills.
From my earlier visits to retailers I had some ideas of what I wanted so I started placing multiple images of everything into a mood board in Canva, and listed all individual products, prices, and website links in an Excel spreadsheet.
It took a few more trips to the supplier I had decided to use but eventually I had everything picked out.
Tiles, wall hung vanity, mirrored shaving cabinet (to maximise storage), tapware, basin (don’t forget the push up plug), shower rose and mixer, towel rail and the toilet.
My first dollars were committed. $6,500 in bathroom supplies.
I have hidden a few columns including cost and actual supplier in my product list. And yes absolutely one or two things changed before I placed my order.
Engaging a Builder
We all know from watching The Block that bathrooms require many trades, and I knew I wanted someone experienced who could manage great-quality trades on my behalf.
My electrician, who I’ve known for many years, recommended a builder who was also a carpenter. After meeting him, I knew he was the right person for the job.
When we discussed pricing. I said I was hoping for around $25,000, and he said it might be closer to $30,000. He didn’t provide a fixed quote, but I trusted him and knew I wanted him to do the job.
Then I waited 12 months for him to be available.
The Trades and Costs
There is a long list of trades required in a bathroom renovation, and they are needed at different stages of the build.
Here is the rundown of the trades on my project and their costs. They were all excellent at their jobs. The trades totalled $25,585 and their costs included their time and materials they provided.
| Trade | Work | Cost |
| Builder / Carpetener | Demolition of the old bathroom, rebuilding the floor under the shower, Cutting bricks out to recess Shaving Cabinet & Niche. Coordinating and working with all Trades. Final fit off for Shaving Cabinet and Vanity. | $10,300 |
| Junior Chippys | Assisted with Demolition | Inc above. |
| Plumbers | A combination of inside and outside plumbing including capping, installing new water supply lines, sewer pipework and fiitting off. | $5,820 |
| Waterproofer | I had a professional waterproofer come in, sometimes a carpetener may do the work. They fully tanked floor and did the shower walls. Using fibre glass my bathroom is as waterproof as a boat. | $732 |
| Renderer | My art deco period home had brick internal walls and once the demolition was completed I needed the solid plaster replaced | $950 |
| Tiler | Screed shower base. Cut and install all tiles for floor and walls. Mitred edge for niche tiles. Supply angle for doorway and brushed gold tile insert for shower base | $3,500 |
| Shower Installer | To maximise shower space, I had a custom shower measured and installed. | $3,383 |
| Electrician | Move wall switche and put switches inside shaving cabinets for LED Light and additional power. | $900 |
| Painter | Luckily my Mum had taught me how to paint and I did this small amount of work myself. | $0 |
| Skip | A skip dropped off and picked up for demolition | $380 |
That’s a lot of trades and coordination!
Pain Points
Challenging Brick Walls!
I didn’t know how long this renovation would take. Would it be a week like The Block or a month? It ended up being nearly two months.
My trades didn’t all work for the same company, so occasionally there were down days waiting for one trade to finish before another could start.
My renderer, who I have used before, ended up in hospital and required surgery, so we had to find another renderer at the last minute. (The original renderer has since fully recovered.)
The biggest delay was the shower. It couldn’t be measured until the tiles were installed, then it had to be ordered, manufactured, and finally installed.
This alone was about a two-and-a-half-week process from measurement to fit-off.
The final fit off really brings the whole thing together, but you have your doubts when you spend 6 weeks looking at the build process. Also the dust!!! 100 year old brick walls can generate serious dust.
Though my clever builder put in a extractor fan in my bathroom window.
The End Results
The Final Fit Out
I love my new bathroom.
It feels modern but my choices still sit comfortably within my period home. There’s also a sense of continuity with my master bedroom which is adjacent, particularly through the colour scheme and gold tapware.
Could it have been done faster or cheaper? Potentially.
But with so many things that can go wrong in a bathroom, especially in a period home with all brick walls, I wanted experienced trades. For me, that was worth it.
Even though this renovation was about my personnel bathroom renovation our Buyer Agents are able to advise and assist in updating bathrooms if required.
Author
Joanne Sinistaj
Marketing & Property Research