Can I redo my bathroom in this order?

[goodwinter]

For context, we're FTB and haven't moved yet but I'm already planning and costing all the refurb in my head!

The bathroom in the new place is pretty old and grotty. We'll want to redo the entire thing: new suite, half-tiled walls, and vinyl flooring.

My mum, who lives on the opposite side of the country, is an absolute whiz with DIY and has offered help with absolutely all of this, so we can save a lot of money on labour - except the plumbing part of removing & reinstalling the suite... so we'll have to get a plumber in for that. She's suggested the following:

• Mum comes up to help us remove all wall tiles and floor vinyl
• We pay a plumber to remove existing suite & install new suite
• Mum comes up again to re-tile (and plaster if necessary) the walls and lay the new vinyl.

I was concerned about un-waterproofed walls, but we can take very careful baths for a week or two until the walls are re-tiled. I have young siblings, so mum can't come up and stay for several days while the plumber is here - it has to be split between two trips. And we'll only have one toilet, so the suite needs to be removed and fitted within one day.

My question is, really, is it ok to fit the vinyl flooring after the new suite has been put in (assuming there's decent floorboards or similar underneath the current vinyl)? My mum reckons it's fine, and the bathroom in our current flat has been done the same way, but some googling suggests that flooring should be done first. Does it matter? Is it just a matter of aesthetics with the finished product or is there a real problem with this plan?

Hopefully my post all makes sense... let me know if I've not explained anything properly!

Oh, one more thing - I'm not particularly concerned about tiling once the new suite is in, as we'll have a fitted vanity unit so we'll just tile up to the sides of that, and then we can slide the tiles behind the toilet cistern very carefully.. mum's done this a few times before and she's a serious perfectionist so I don't doubt her ability to make it look brilliant.

what is the floor made of?

not chipboard, I hope.

Not sure as yet, we haven't moved in yet to pull the damn thing up! If it is chipboard, would we then need to put all the flooring in before the new suite goes in? Or remove entirely? And if it's decent solid floorboards, are we ok to do as planned? Thank you!

When you remove the wall tiles you might need to replaster the walls. Then you will have to wait for it to dry, which takes days not hours.

What are your walls and floor made of ?

Usually bathroom vinyl is just loose laid and you can rip it up. It takes 15 mins.

And removing the wall tiles will take you one day ( assuming it’s a normal sized bathroom and you said it’s half tiled ) and requires a couple of simple tools and some dust sheets.

Please don’t make your mum travel from the other side of the country to do this bit. Watch a YouTube video and DIY.

Leave the vinyl down as long as you can .

Plastering and tiling is a skilled job so get her to come and do that. You can still use the bath as long as you tack a plastic dust sheet to the wall and are careful.

What are you doing with the other half of the walls that are not painted?

Does it have a radiator or heated towel rail ?

Are you keeping all the fittings in the same place ? Otherwise it will cost a lot more in labour.

Do you want to change the bathroom lighting ? If so this is the time to do it (before walls are replastered).

Chipboard isn’t a good thing on a bathroom floor because it’s like weetabix.

Did your surveyor check the bathroom floor for rot? It’s a common problem around baths .

The biggest benefit of your mum’s first trip will be that she gets to give the job the once over to see what it’ll entail and be able to prepare for the second trip and to leave you with details of what she requires from the plumber to facilitate tiling, if I were tiling it I’d ask them to fit the toilet away from the wall to take into account the tile & adhesive layer and make sure they fit an isolating valve so I could remove the cistern to tile behind later. Before you buy the replacement toilet take a note of the soil pipe height from the floor and check it’ll work with the new toilet. Although you can buy offset wastes you don’t want to have the outlet on the new toilet lower than the soil pipe it connects to.

Floor will need to be sound and flat (if floorboards check them for bowing which show though the vinyl) and assuming the vinyl you’re thinking of is the type on a roll then fitting after the suite’s been fitted isn’t a problem as long as it’s done carefully but will need sealing where it meets any edges or has been cut to fit round the toilet bowl or pipes etc. to prevent water spills seeping through to the sub floor and causing damage.

With regards to the bath fitting ask the plumber to seal between the bath edge/side and wall as they’re fitting it so you’re not reliant on the final silicone seal at the bath/tile junction. This is an absolute must and something some plumbers cut corners on and can prove to be a costly mistake. Once the bath’s in if you need to use it and are worried about wetting the walls then you can paint the area to be tiled with a SBR mix (3 parts water to 1 part SBR) which will both waterproof and prime them ready for tanking and tiling.

One other thing to check is, if you’re tiling round the vanity, the clearance between the tap/s and wall after the tiling’s been done, you don’t want to end up too close.

Fingers crossed all goes to plan 🤞 and show your mum the love 💕 us mums appreciate being appreciated 😊

If it's anything like our bathroom when we had the 1980s monstrosity removed this year - once you get one wall tile down the whole lot will come... still attached to the plaster underneath them! It was definitely a re-plaster the whole room job - albeit it wasn't done to the immaculately skimmed finish it would have been if we were painting as we were going to be re-tiling over the top.