Oh f***, I think it's time to redo the bathroom - any tips on saving money?

[BoBoo]

It seems like our toilet is leaking. Whoever did the bathroom before we bought has enclosed everything, like the cistern and pipes, so we can't access anything without destroying weird, tiled, enclosed partition, behind which the wall is not tiled. There are lots of bits in the bathroom that I'm not happy with (such as no shower head on the bath so pain to clean, rinse hair etc) so seems like if we're having to start knocking things around it might be a good time to fix all the things I would like to fix.

What are the best ways to save money? Should I source and buy suite myself? Am probably up to a bit of tiling if that would save money, although have previously only tiled small bits. It's the only bathroom in the house, so while don't mind living with a mess for a while would need to get the toilet and bath functioning as quickly as possible.

This would be first project in the house, so a little hand holding would be lovely. Thanks.

eBay for parts then local plumber for fitting.

Same for tiles but lots of places have discontinued lines etc so keep an eye out.

Shiny tiles are pretty in the shop but a bugger to keep clean

I'd get someone to tile but grout myself if cutting costs. Crap tiling would make the whole room look crap IMO.

Get several quotes as they can vary widely. Also, there are vast differences in cost of tiles. After looking at travertine and lots of expensive porcelain tiles we decided on cheapish large white tiles with a red mosaique border. Must have saved hundreds and it looks lovely and fresh! You can get slightly more expensive floor tiles as the surface area is much smaller than walls. Check out the sales and amazon. If you have time it's not necessary to buy everything at the same place.

I just wasn't swayed by a shower enclosure costing £800 when I could get one for less than £200 that was of a similar quality.

We did a bathroom and an en-suite at our last house. We actually plumbed it in ourselves, but got an electrician to connect up the electric shower.

I did the tiling as I have done it before and we only tiled where it was needed. We ripped out floor to ceiling tiles and replaced just around the bath, behind the sink and continued the tiling behind the toilet.

We shopped around for flooring (B&Q value adhesive vinyl planks) and we got all our bathroom stuff from Tesco Bathrooms.

Recently at this house we used our Tesco Clubcard vouchers to buy tiles from Topps Tiles, saved us £160.

Get at least 3 quotes from bathroom fitters.

I think poor tiling makes everything look rubbish but its not that difficult.

Would second the suggestion of using tesco clubcard vouchers at Topps tiles (although you can only use them on tiles, not on grout etc).

We used wallsandfloortiles (just google) for our downstairs loo - some really lovely tiles (in the budget section) and the trim (you know the plastic / metal edging that you use on corners etc) much less expensive than even B&Q / high street etc.

Have also used victoria plumb in our last house - really competitive prices compared to the high street.

I also just used wallsandfloor for tiles and they are very reasonable. Did a shower room in wood pigeon metro tiles.
Bathstore is great and if you research online you can haggle them down further if you go to an actual shop.

Thanks for all the tips and for taking the trouble to reply. Could have come at a better time financially, but when isn't that the case, and quite excited about the prospect of getting a bathroom that actually works for us.