Bathroom reno

Hi all,

Thought I would just start a little post of a bathroom reno we are doing. It is the "kids" bathroom in our PPOR. We have set a budget of about 5K. We had planned on doing it all ourselves, but have since decided to engage a tiler - although my hubby would have given it a go, it seemed like a lot of effort, since he is time poor, and it would have taken a long time as he was learning along the way (we have found www.renovateforum.com to be a little gold mine!)

What we have spent so far-

900mm Vanity (from auction) - $420
Towel rail, basin waste and mixer (from auction) - $90
2 x floor wastes- $35
Bath and Shower tapware - $150
Tiles and grout - $864
Tiler - $2000 (incl rebuild bath and shower hob, waterproofing, rescreeding and adhesive)

So far we have demolished the bathroom, retaining the bathtub as it was in good condition. The cement floor pad was down to bare earth in places, so that needed patching. The bath hob fell apart when the old tiles were removed, as did the shower hob, so they both needed re-building.

Some pics - gotta love the old yellow vanity....
More to come....
 

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Not to hijack this but if someone knows a good tiler/bathroom renovator (and cheap lol!) please let me know as well... for Brisbane.

Look forward to your pics coming thru Nards!
 
cont....

We decided to keep the same layout,as it was functional enough and to save on plumbing costs. We went with large tiles, as the room is small and white walls to stay neutral, with just a glass tile feature strip in the shower recess - boring, but safe!

We got quotes from 4 tilers, all of whom advertised in our local rag. We were amazed at the range of quotes, from $1200 through to $4300. Was a little difficult as some of them only did the tiling and we had to build the hobs and water-proof, others did the lot. In the end we went with gut feel and price.

The tiler was Asian man (Korean, we discovered) and his English was quite poor. We asked to see some of his work, and he invited us to come look at a display home he was tiling - the work was quite good so we hired him. As it turns out he has a "team" of tilers and they spoke worse english than he did, but they did an awesome job with the tiling (to our untrained eye!). Everything was perfectly level and straight, they were punctual, clean and worked really hard. We paid cash (and I'm pretty sure it was "off the books"! I also wondered briefly about them being illegal workers - but hey, they did a great job, and hopefully they were being paid correctly :eek:). I would be very happy to recommend them...

First pic - end of day 1
pic 2 and 3 - the finished product.

Next up is the install the tapware, buy and install a shower screen, and install the vanity. Lastly, have sparky install a new light/exhaust fan fitting. Then paint door (which is currently removed) and door frame..also need to paint ceiling - which I now realise I should have done after the demolition..
 

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Great looking work based on the pics. Question... how would you claim back the $$ spend on the "cash" tiling work?
 
Nice work - I have found if you go with tiles too big ie 600mm*600mm the tilers will charge more - for the extra grunt work involved - having moved a few boxes of these myself over the years I suspect they deserve it.

Nice pics

Jane

PS As this is a PPOR no claiming is possible anyhow
 
Yes, as pointed out by Buzz, it is our PPOR so no deductions can be claimed anyway :( . If it was an IP I would certainly be making sure it was all above board.

A couple things I have learned up to now (this being our first bathroom reno)

- put in new tap spindles (right word?) between when old tiles come down and new tiles go up...much easier, especially if you discover a plumbing problem.
-Paint ceiling after room is stripped - now have to worry about possible paint splatter on the new tiles.

Am sure there will be more learning to come :D

N
 
nice work hey love the prices on your auction stuff good deals there where abouts did u go for the auction stuff?:)

We picked up the auction stuff from a Ross's Auction, at a bathroom/kitchen renovation company in Balcatta. Sign up to their "upcoming auctions" newsletter - http://www.auctions.com.au/, there seems to be regular auctions with bathrooms products, and other reno stuff too. We went to a couple before we bid to check/compare prices with retail....some people seem to get a bit carried away at auctions, and forget there is a buyers premium :confused:.
 
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