Bathroom Renovations Sydney West

You don’t need to spend $30, 000 to leverage value from your bathroom renovation, but it pays to know what you can skimp on and where to invest your budget for big impact.

The first major decision you’ll need to make is whether to gut the bathroom completely and start with a blank canvas or use the existing plumbing systems. The first option requires more work and consequently costs more but it can also be more satisfying, especially if the original bathroom was horrendous and/or if the plumbing system needs to be updated anyway.

Starting from scratch

If you go the blank canvas route, here’s why it costs more:

• Changing points: If you need to change the position of fixtures in the bathroom, or even just change tap type (i.e. from two taps to mixer or mixer to two taps) you’ll need to change the water points and that will require work.
• New pipework: Incurs costs as it is, but even more so if you have brick walls because the pipework needs to be chased into the wall where a pathway is cut out for them in the wall cavity.
• Jack-hammering: Any time you need to break into solid concrete, either to access pipes or to chase them, you’ll need someone to jackhammer through it. You could consider using another material when you renovate such as concrete sheeting, which is thinner, so it doesn’t cost as much to fix or update next time.
• Luxuries: Underfloor heating, control panels that allow you to control water temperature for baths/showers (or even remotely fill the bath from another room) and skylights all incur costs. Both the products themselves and the time/labor it takes to install them.

Bathroom edits

If you don’t need to undergo the full monty, you can consider working with the existing bathroom skeleton. While there are some restrictions on what you can do, you can update the space with newer fixtures and tiling on a smaller budget and with minimal disruption.

The most important thing to keep in mind when choosing fixtures here is that the location of the points will limit what can go on top.