I know this is hardly worthy a thread to start in 'The Good Stuff' but I have just been quoted around $25K to have my main bathroom fully renovated with brand new amenities, fixings and new tiling done. Using middle of the range bathroom products.

For me this is the cost of a whole hifi setup!

Just wondering if any SNAers have recently gone through a total bathroom makeover and any recommendations of companies in Sydney who have done a good job at modest cost.

Cheers.

Haven't done it myself but I do know that bathroom, kitchen or laundry equals lots of money. As soon as plumbing and fixtures are involved it gets expensive.

On a larger scale I was looking at a reno and extension for my house but it was cheaper to do a knock down and full rebuild.

That's only due to the bathroom hifi set-up you are no doubt insisting upon!

From past reno experience - get at least 3 quotes as many bear absolutely no resemblance to reality.

Yes, if most of the cost was due to having a nice hifi system setup in the bathroom, that was impervious to heat and steam, I would of gone ahead by now!

Yes, need to get some more quotes me thinks...

We have gone through a whole bathroom renovation. It included removal of walls, relocation of doors, repositioning of water outlets and was finished with mid range tapware. All this come in at approx 15k from memory (although it is possible that the mrs kept some extravagances to herself . So I would definitely suggest you follow the advice you have been given and shop around.

It all depends on how big your bathroom is, and what you are having done. It may be quite reasonable, or it may be too much. My general experience of renovations is that they are very, very expensive.

I agree that you should shop around. However, you should also make sure you are comfortable with whoever is doing the work, make sure that each quote represents the same job, and that the parameters are very clearly spelt out.

Personally, I prefer to work with a builder I can trust, and let them work on an hourly rate. That way, they don't have to factor in everything which could conceivably go wrong, and you pay for the time they actually spend on it. At the same time, you don't have the problem that if they have underqouted, they are looking for short-cuts.

One other thing too - from friends who have recently renovated. Get a time-line in writing. Maybe even include penalties for late completion. I have had a few mates of late where the job went along nicely, then the last finishing touches, fiddly bits and clean-ups took an age as the builder had already moved onto the next job.

The best recommendation is from someone you know who has used them - but one of these instances was the builder I recommended (basically rebuilt my house with not a single harsh word on either side!), who then stuffed around with the finishing.

Wow, thats a lot of cash. About 3 years ago I redid, well actually moved the location of the bathroom and kitchen. This involved knocking out walls, putting up new ones etc. Came in at about 8 grand

However, I did every bit of work myself, apart from hooking up the plumbing and electricity. We put in a second hand kitchen from ebay (about 7 years old, Bosch appliances, 1K thank you very much) and some second hand windows. We lived in a building site for longer than I really cared for and I spent an awful lot of weekends (and holidays) doing demolision, building, plastering, digging trenches, tiling, painting etc. But it came up nice in the end, and there was no way I could have afforded to pay someone else to do it. Heres some pics of the bathroom

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and kitchen

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Nice work Caddie,

I did mine about 6 months ago and our quote was around 23K.The misses and me set to and stripped it completely, tiles and all, then paid a tiler and a plumber, did the sparks myself (I'm a leckie) had the shower installed by a glass co. finished off by painting ourselves, $13,000 all up. 10G is not to be sniffed at, and we're very happy with the result. If you are at all handy then partial DIY is the way to go.

I do it all myself.

Hard to get under 10 grand.

We did ours years ago, knocked out the walls etc and turned what was a bedroom into a bathroom. Can you do any of it yourself? I had no experience when I did mine and we did a lot ourselves: ripping out the old plaster (horrible job, I've done every room in the house), laying tiles (a background in hand cut and paste layout was invaluable there), architraves and a few other bits. Also, do you need a builder? They basically organise the job and bring in external plumbers, plasterers etc, you can organise things yourself but the trick is to get things done in the right order (plumbing and electricals after ripping out the wall and before replastering for example). If you want someone to organise everything then a good builder is the way to go but do shop around.

Good luck. We have enjoyed a renovated bathroom for 17 years and it is very nice.

DS

G'day,

I know this is hardly worthy a thread to start in 'The Good Stuff' but I have just been quoted around $25K to have my main bathroom fully renovated with brand new amenities, fixings and new tiling done. Using middle of the range bathroom products.

For me this is the cost of a whole hifi setup!

You could always install a bucket and a hose, and spend the rest on yer hifi. Which is more important to you?

In my old house I demolished the old bathroom, put up new plasterboard, built my own bath/shower frame, and installed the cabinetry. Got a plumber in to do the pipes and a tiler to do the floor and walls. Came in under $5K. You gotta do as much DIY as possible before the tradies raid yer bank balance.

--Geoff

I'm doing one upstairs ATM.........materials and fittings came to way over 5 grand.........and I got it all wholesale!

Almost finished renovating our bathroom, did it all ourselves. My wife had the "gift of tiling", mine of plumbing (live on a farm with low pressure water system and septic tank). It all came to under $3.5k. Used existing wiring and taps, redid all the plumbing, but had to get someone in to vinyl the floor.

The door closes and the window opens. The toilet, shower and hand basin all work with no water leaks. What more could you need ?

RalphH

Im a sales rep who goes around melbourne selling stuff to the plumbing stores etc. I have nothing to do with bathroom ware or tapware however I do kmow that Reece's have a warehouse type place that sells out old floor stock etc which is all usually in pretty good nic!

I have a whole bathroom ready to go in which I have paid a fraction of retail for. just need the right tiler/waterproofer, motivation and a shower screen company now to make it happen!

The warehouse is on their Docklands site (footscray) pretty sure its only open thursdays and fridays

Also if you trawl around most of the plumbing stores you will see vanity units etc off the floor which have been discounted because there is a newer model availiable or they ahve stopped doing them in that color etc.

you should also see in the trade areas out the back at some plumbing chains with tables with tapware and other little things like soap dispensers and dunny brush holders at cheaper prices than what they are in the showrooms.

This can be a slow process however you will eventually get there and save a few dollars along the way. Foprtunatley almost all of these places are open saturdays until middayish.

$25,000 sounds about right to get the job done completely.$10,000 for the job and $15,000 profit for the company.I did a reno 2 years ago and found the plumbers the biggest joke price wise.So I did all the manual work myself including a new slad swapped the bath for a extra toilet and added heated floor and towel rack for extra comfort.$12,000 all up.

Yeah we recently got a quote for $31k to get our bathroom done. We were a bit shocked but then I figured it was reasonable given that it was going to be a totally new build and included knocking out a wall and putting in a skylight.

For the moment (I'm not sure how permanent this is), we've decided to stick with the squalour that we have. Maybe next year. Maybe.

Knocking out a wall and putting a skylight in is only 2 days work for one person.

Geez, I can't believe this thread is still alive on a hifi forum!

Thanks for sharing your experiences everyone. As this has become a bit of a show and tell I thought I would post up a few pics of my current main bathroom situation.

Would be fun to get opinions good or bad of its aesthetics and general condition from my photos!

I got a few more quotes, the lowest being around $15K for the complete job but with the most basic amenities.

Edited March 6, 201115 yr by vmhf

Looks all right to me!

(a frameless shower would look a lot better though.......I noticed they even sell them in Bunnings now!)

We are doing 2 bathrooms, with one completed.

Bought all the toilets, basins, tapware, towel rails etc together for about 6K.

First bathroom was part of a reno so was all new plaster etc and did the floor tiling myself before getting in a tiler to do the walls ($600).

Vanities were from the mob we got our kitchen off, about 2.5K for 2 vanities, going to plumbing stores etc would have cost us that for one unit.

Did the painting and waterproofing ourselves.

Had an old bath re-enameled for about 1.3K.

Frameless shower screen and mirror about 2.3K.

Plumber did all the plumbing stuff, fixings etc and I installed all the shower rails and shelves in the shower.

Hard work but very satisfying when we look at how good it is now.

Currently doing our en-suite, you can see from our bedroom through the walls to the bathroom.

Builder was in for a couple of days (hourly rate $640)

Plumber about a grand by the time he is finished.

Pulled out the old bathroom and plaster ourselves, no cost but hard work, loaded into the skip today ($550) with help from a friend, thank god.

Plasterers start on Wed, hopefully finish on Friday, about 2K.

I think we'll have done bathrooms for under $20K.

dirty.

Will post pics if I can find some.

Knocking out a wall and putting a skylight in is only 2 days work for one person.

But it also happens to be a load bearing wall, so needs a beam put in etc etc...

Oh god, just thinking about it is making me weary and bored. Bathroom is fine as it is!

I put a huge lintel in, cut and knocked down the wall and carted all the **** outside in less than a day................cleaning up took nearly as long!

Having cleaned out every room in this house after bashing out lathe and plaster (well the plaster part), I know exactly what you mean. You stand there shoveling dust and you just have to keep telling yourself that, despite appearances, there is a finite amount of dust in the room.

DS

We got two bathrooms renovated last year - came in at about $43k total. That included some quality fittings ($5k for the 2 vanities, $2.5k for a frameless shower, etc). We did get a quote from a builder who does renovations in all of the expensive waterfront homes, and it would have come to about $25k/bathroom. $25k would include some very good fittings. All in all we got 4 quotes and went with a builder who ad a very good reputation and was competitive in his price but not the cheapest.

One big mistake we did was to get the builder to quote on the building and we organised buying the materials. We had a warrany issue with one of the baths and since we had purchased it, it was our problem, not the builders. If all of the fittings are bought through the builder, any warranty issues will be their problem. We found that when you read the fine print in warranties, they go nowhere near covering costs (in our case, the warranty stipulated they would pay up to $200 in removal and reinstallation costs - that didn't even cover the tiling!).

cheers,

John