how much did you spend renovating your bathroom?

Anywhere from $5-$50k depending upon how big, extent of structural works, access to alter existing plumbing, quality & extent of wall and floor finishes.

Hi pinknic20,

I agree with Scott, it can cost anywhere from $5-$50k depending on your taste, style, re-plumbing and amount of labour you want to contribute. My biggest expense on the 2nd was the plumbing work to re-route some plumbing and the 'built-in" toilet which caused my plumber a bit of grief. I have now renovated 2 bathrooms, the first costing under $5000 including pluming and washing machine and the 2nd cost under $10,000 and both looked fantastic and expensive on completion.

The way i achieved this was primarily 2 ways…. by buying the majority of hardware, (tiles, tapware, shower screens, vanity) at auction and then by doing the 'demolishing' myself. It is quite easy to strip the bathroom yourself. Invest in some good gloves, goggles and dusk masks then buy a cheapish hammer drill from bunnings and go for your life on the tiles. Just be aware of plumbing and electrics when doing so. I purchase the majority of tiles from an auction house. I managed to buy 100×100 glass tiles for $36/square m which retail for anywhere between $100 & $300/m at a tile shop. Most people will tell you to be wary of auction tiles however a lot of the time the stock is still 1st quality its just over supply or liquidation so you can pick up some great stuff. Same with vanities. I purchased a vanity for $250 then when i got it home and unwrapped it, it had a harvey norman sticker inside for $1900!!!

Long story short, if you want to save money, do the easy (but hardwork) labour yourself, scout auctions and internet such as ebay for good quality bargains and design it yourself. If you have the money, hire a professional to do the lot!!! Places such as domain, harvey norman, reece etc can do obligation free quotes and give you design ideas in the process which can also help. Hope this helps…..

It cost us $24,000 to do the whole lot.  We didn't do anything.  As ours was a PPOR we got very good quality materials, vanities, toilet bowl etc.  It cost us close to $5,000 just to get the old bathroom removed.

If it was for an investment property, I wouldn't spend any more than $10,000 as this would get me quite a good renovation.

Hi Nicole, we have just finished our bathroom reno on our PPOR. We did it for just under 10K. No particular budget though. It was a total bare bones job as most are, including removing a wall between the old dunny. A  $250 jack hammer from Aldi was a life saver and worked perfectly. I laboured for a week for the tradies and supplied cash. I would never attempt to tile. What a complex, unforgiving job that is….leave it to the experts. Our splurge was our shower panel, just one peice of glass 1850 high and 1200 long with no door. A real stunner with a water mark pattern through it  (Desert Sand) and coated with Enduro shield. Apparently repels90% of chemicals and keeps the glass looking new.  Good luck!!

Wow 10K for a bathroom seems a lot to me, cant say i have done a bathroom yet but being a Elelctrician i have a few tradie mates who will help out.
I plan on ripping out the existing shower replacing it with a $200 claw foot bath re tile above bath, re tile above vanity and the boards will be polished.

Which auction houses do you go to Kiz.?

If your reno is in or near the major city – 5K budget should be very reasonably, if you don’t go too fancy. I would still get profs to do most of work.

Keep your design very simple and clean – this way even simple white tile design with a trim looks more sophisticated. Moving plumbing around does add cost.

You can easily remove old tiles. I personally wouldn’t take the bath itself of by myself – I’m not sure I can disconnect it correctly and I can’t carry it out anyway. I can tile walls – but for interstate my reno I hire someone to do it. I then do all finishing work, like hanging a mirror, putting toilet roll, towel holders. And then I do painting.

I tend to hire someone to do most of work in the bathroom. But this is because my renos were a complete revamp and all interstate. There always so much less qualify work I can easily do in other parts of a house.

Check with your traders the price they will pay for material – for tiles, appliances, etc. Then go to the auction and buy everything that you can get chipper.

And one more tip – Don’t buy bath upfront – you might find that the old one is in much better shape then you thought and you can just restore it and have a character feature. In my last two renos I found that bath actually was a claw bath that someone has built a frame around! My renos were in outback mining towns, so restoring them was out of question (eh… Broke my hart…).

Hi again! James007 i'm in Sydney and use laws auctions at whetherill park for my tiles and vanities. Ebay has been great lately too for shower screens and fittings. $10,000 is not a HUGE amount for a bathroom but you can definately do it cheaper. Plumbing was my biggest cost on the 2nd job as i had to move a lot of the pipework. Nami is correct, the less you move the less it will cost as the rest is just cosmetic. Nami, its not that hard to demolish a bathroom at all. Just be very careful of plumbing pipes and electrical wires when removing the tiles with any type of machinery. I'm an average 30yo female and i have completely stripped 2 now, screed and all!!!  The only thing i needed help with was the very heavy cast iron bathtub but other than that, i did the lot myself. Also make sure you wear a good dust mask, gloves and goggles. Respraying the bath can be a good alternative too as it means even less plumbing. But be aware that to spray still costs around $500 so make sure you get a certificate of warranty as i have friends who have had a bad experience with it. Basically, if you shop around, the fittings and fixtures will be the cheapest part of the fit-out and the trades will be the most expensive. I'm just about to do my 3rd reno and this time im redo-ing one bathroom then completely building a new 2nd one so that should be interesting! In the meantime, if anyone wants b4 and afters of my 2 previous bathrooms for an idea of cost and quality, PM me and i'll be happy to send you some pics

Hi Picnic ,

I have done a few bathrooms , both reno and complete new ones . Your $2000 is probably a bit skinny but not impossible . The important thing is to be practical with the location of the fixtures . Think in advance about the sewer pipe and the drains from the bath ,shower and vanity before you start . Maybe talk to a plumber and get them to quote the job and ask for the most cost effective way and maybe the most  logical way .  It is easier if for example you have a house where you can get access underneath the floor. A concrete floor (slab on ground ) can be more of a pain. Make sure you set the bath into the wall properly . One house I bought  had rot inside the walls from a bath not being set into the wall properly . It was a case of rip the bathroom out to fix all the rot and then put it all back together .

Good Luck

Rodeo

I have just bought 2 full bathrooms for $3800, this includes double vanities with granite benchtops, toilets, baths, all tapware and fittings and tiles plus the materials to install. I purchased most of these items from a builders clearance centre, where they sell for 10% – 20% over the cost price. Labour isn't included as my partner will be installing the bathrooms.