Bathroom Renovations Geelong
A bathroom you'll want to keep, built to last a generation.
Bathrooms are the most-used rooms in a house and the most likely to fail when done cheaply. I build them properly: waterproofing done right, quality fixtures, and a finish that holds up.
Where the trades can't be hidden, the quality shows.
Across Geelong, Newtown, Highton and the Bellarine coast I take on full bathroom renovations and rebuilds. A bathroom is one of the few rooms where bad work actually surfaces, in the waterproofing, the tiling, the fixtures that fail a year in. So it's a room worth doing once, properly.
Wet areas need a builder who understands sequencing and waterproofing standards. That's the difference between a bathroom that stays solid for twenty years and one that leaks in five.
Complete bathroom rebuilds and renovations
Waterproofing done to standard, not rushed
Quality tiling and fixture selection
Master ensuite, family and main bathrooms
Vanities, showers, baths and storage
Honest guidance on where your budget performs
How a bathroom renovation runs.
Nothing in a bathroom is forgiving. Get the waterproofing and the falls right and it lasts decades. Get them wrong and you find out eighteen months later, in the wall behind the shower.
- 1
Strip out and find what's really there
Old bathrooms often hide problems under the tiles: rotten flooring, undersized timber, or plumbing that was never quite right. I'll tell you what we've found before we build over it.
- 2
Set out the room before anything is fixed
We mark out the shower, vanity, toilet and floor wastes on the frame so you can stand in it and feel the space. Far cheaper to move a wall now than after tiling.
- 3
Waterproofing, done to standard
Wet-area membrane applied to AS 3740 by a licensed waterproofer, with the floor fall set to drain properly, all inspected and certified before a single tile goes down.
- 4
Tiling, fixtures and finish
Tiling set out square off the room's most visible wall, then screen, vanity, tapware and toilet fitted and tested, and the room left clean and working.
What drives the price of a bathroom.
Two bathrooms the same size can differ by $20,000, and almost none of that difference is in the tiles you can see. Here's where the money actually goes.
Whether the layout moves
Keeping the toilet, shower and vanity where they are is the biggest saving there is. Moving a toilet means cutting into the floor and re-running the waste.
What's under the tiles
The number that changes quotes most. Rotten flooring, undersized bearers or old plumbing all have to be fixed before anything new is laid over them.
Tile choice and area
Large-format porcelain looks simple and costs more in labour to lay flat and level. Floor-to-ceiling tiling adds area and cutting around every fixture.
Screen and tapware
Framed or frameless, standard or custom size. Tapware ranges from sensible to imported, and both are fine, they just cost differently.
Who supplies the fixtures
You can buy your own and I'll fit them, or I can source them. Either works, and there's no markup games, just a difference in who carries the warranty.
Working through other rooms
If the bathroom shares a wall or floor with a laundry or hallway, work may need to sequence around those. I'll flag it up front, not halfway through.
Send me a photo of the bathroom and tell me whether you're keeping the layout, and I'll give you a straight answer on the cost.
Rooms that often get done together.
Laundry
Hard-wearing laundry spaces with quality storage.
See laundryKitchens
Quality kitchens built around how you live.
See kitchensExtensive Renovations
Full-home renovations, sequenced properly.
See extensive renovationsYou can see how these have finished on real jobs in the project gallery, or read the full story behind the Newtown renovation. If you would rather talk it through, you can contact Ben directly.
What I find in Geelong homes.
Geelong's housing stock is old, and it changes street to street. That changes what a bathroom renovation actually involves.
Weatherboard in Newtown, Geelong West and East Geelong
Timber-framed homes from the early 1900s, often with a bathroom added decades after the house was built. You frequently find it sitting over an old rear verandah, which means checking what's carrying the floor before anything is tiled. South Geelong has plenty of the same era, mixed in with its later brick homes.
Brick veneer in Highton, Belmont and South Geelong
1960s and 70s brick homes with small, boxy bathrooms and the toilet in a separate room. Knocking through to make one usable bathroom is common, and it usually needs a new waste run.
The Bellarine and coastal homes
Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads and Torquay see a lot of holiday houses and older beach shacks being brought up to standard. Salt air is hard on tapware, so material choice matters more on the coast than it does inland.
If your bathroom is in one of these and you're not sure what it needs, send me a photo. I've seen most of what's behind Geelong's bathroom walls and I'll tell you honestly what you're in for.
Time to fix the bathroom properly?
Tell me about the bathroom and your home. I'll give you straight advice on what it should cost before anything is signed.