My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

Small budget bathroom

14 replies

noitsnotme · 28/04/2017 09:48

No replies on my other thread, so trying on here. Planning on replacing my entire bathroom in the next 5/6 months, but will only have a budget of about 3 - 3.5k for (parts and labour) without taking out a loan, credit card etc. Is this realistic? I don't want it to be totally basic, but it's a small bathroom and I also don't want to spend too much because the overall value of the flat isn't very much. But we've lived here a long time and the bathroom really is an embarrassment, so I really want something I love.

I read about bathrooms 3 and 4 times my budget on here, so just wondered if there's anyone who actually loves their bathroom on the lower end of the budget scale.

OP posts:
Camnico · 28/04/2017 09:50

Omg yes lol. That is more than enough. I've just done my bathroom and got the materials of eBay/screwfix/gumtree etc.. I got all materials myself and got joiners/plumbers to do this as a homer instead of during their working hours, this worked out much cheaper

mygorgeousmilo · 28/04/2017 09:55

Absolutely! We got our stuff from Victoria Plumb, the wall and floor tiles from Tiles, etc. And I got some fancy schmancy smaller tiles for a splash back above the vanity from eBay. Paint from Farrow & Ball, light from Argos. All of that came to £1000 but as for labour I'm not sure because we had the entire house ripped to shreds, and I've forgotten all of the individual prices now. Everyone compliments my bathroom! Tk max is good for funky accessories

mygorgeousmilo · 28/04/2017 10:00

Oh and yes to Screwfix, all their materials are sooooo much cheaper than the builders merchants on high streets. Even paint rollers etc are way cheaper than anywhere else, and it all adds up. I remember I got my light pull from George at ASDA. You have to shop around but yes you can have a fab bathroom well within that budget.

user1471539048 · 28/04/2017 10:12

We've just done our bathroom. We were getting quotes from bathroom companies ranging from £4500 to £7000 which was WAY above our budget. So we did it ourselves.
The only person we got in was the plumber who charged us £550. My boyfriend did all the tiling and flooring (he hadnt tiled before ) he had to resheet the walls and celing with plasterboard and levelled the floor.
We have new lighting, new extractor fan, new shower. We basically ripped the whole thing out and started again. We sourced the bath etc ourselves and found it wasn't cheaper to get everything from the one place. So the bath and toilet came from 2 different companies and the sink, shower and taps were from b&q. Tile adhesive etc was from b&q. We could have probably got that kind of stuff cheaper but we don't drive and that was the closest place for us to go. Oh our tiles were b&q and we vought our flooring from a german company! It's taken us 2 weeks to do but that's because my boyfriend has been at work during the day. If he had had about 4 days off in a row he would have done it quicker.
All in it has came to £2276 and I'm so proud and pleased we did it all ourselves. We didn't do too much scrimping and saving and might have saved some money with the tiles and all the materials if you're able to shop around more for that kind of thing.

AVY1 · 28/04/2017 10:23

We redid our bathroom for £750. We used b and q for simple basin/toilet/bath/shower and splashed out a bit for the tiles. But H was a plumber in another life so we didn't have labour costs. I'd say your budget is more than enough for something a bit special!

noitsnotme · 28/04/2017 12:12

Great, thanks for the replies.

I'm not looking for anything too fancy in terms of the sanitary ware, and probably won't want vanity units, but I do want the shower moved to the opposite end of the bath, some shelving in a recessed space, nice tiles and some underfloor heating. But it's small floor space and I only want about 50% of the room tiled so that I can paint the rest and change the colour scheme if I want. I've priced the tiles, flooring, suite, shower, towel rail, etc for about £1000. Priced everything on Victoria Plumb, apart from tiles. Unfortunately, I don't have the first clue about labour costs and no one that I would ask to do any of it at mates rates.

But this thread has given me hope!

OP posts:
limon · 28/04/2017 12:50

our budget for an entire shower room with toilet including gutting and plastering and tiling is £600 as DH will be doing the work. I'm guessing labour is quitr expensive but your budget sounds very doable. We have a travis perking discount to store within 2 miles and will pick stuff up cheaply and on ebay.

user1471539048 · 28/04/2017 13:18

It's the labour that costs the most. I'm lucky my bf decided to give the tiling a bash and hes an electrician so could do the lights, shower and extractor fan.

MoreThanJustANumber · 28/04/2017 13:27

I'd definitely recommend sourcing your own parts/materials and paying a plumber for labour rather than going to a shop that does it all for you. I made the mistake of doing the latter, and the plumber was there for two (short) days (10am–3pm) and was over half of the £4,000 cost. I was so shocked. The quote had said it would be 3–5 days so I queried that it was over £2,000 for labour when it was so quick but they said I'd accepted the quote for the full job. Won't be using them again! It was another £500 or so for tiling and decorating by someone else.

noitsnotme · 28/04/2017 17:21

Two grand for two days work?! Jeez. I've seen a local guy on Facebook, whose work looks good and he gets great reviews, so will see what he can quote for labour only. Although he must sub part out as they're advertised as joiners, so maybe that bumps it up.

Anyone else had good/bad experience of buying stuff from eBay, etc? Bit scared to try that. Confused

All the tiles i really like are so expensive! Sad going to take forever for me to settle on tiles and colour scheme!

Any recommendations for a good extract fan? No windows in the bathroom, so need something decent to deal with condensation and smelly assed DS12.

OP posts:
19lottie82 · 28/04/2017 17:35

Victoria Plub is expensive! Look at soak.com we got all our stuff there for under £900 and tiles for about £300 (floor and full wall), then paid a local builder £1200 to fit it all.

£3k budget is perfectly reasonable, as advised just buy all the stuff yourself and get someone to rip out the old bathroom and fit it for you.

noitsnotme · 28/04/2017 17:53

I'll have a look. I thought VP seemed really good! I'm sure the £1000 I calculated was for everything including a rough estimate for tiles from elsewhere. But I change my mind every day about what style and colour, so all that was just to give me a rough idea. If I had anywhere to store it all until I saved enough for the labour. I'd start buying it now and that would mean I couldn't change my mind.

OP posts:
Weedsnseeds1 · 28/04/2017 18:22

If you are anywhere near Newton Abbot, British Ceramic Tile have a massive factory with a factory shop. There's also a 10% off discount voucher in their website at the moment.

noitsnotme · 28/04/2017 18:57

Weeds I'm not, but thank you.

OP posts:
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.