Bathroom renovation - where to even start??

[sojo44]

We're looking to renovate our upstairs bathroom (no need to move pipes etc.).

What is the best way to go about doing it from your experience?
Is it hiring a checkatrade bathroom renovator to design and install, or is it going to a B&Q, Bathstore or similar and get them to do it?

I'd love to do much of it myself, I know it's a money saver but not confident in my skills so won't be going down this route ha!

What have you found from your experience?

I'm not sure how f the exact answer, so I following, as we need to do our bathroom.

I'm wondering how to go about it, as although pipes are staying, we'll need some minor electrics and a false wall put in.

Hope we get answers 😁

When you say a refurb - what do you actually want to do? And what's your budget?

A bathroom renovator will probably be the most expensive, followed by Bathstore or similar, followed by DIY/getting in separate trades.

We've just done ours by getting in separate trades and doing a bit of DIY as part of our whole house renovation. We:

• Knocked three non-load bearing wall down - gave my cousin a sledgehammer and let him get on with it - he wanted the stress release! I cleared up the mess.
• Had two walls re-built in a slightly different position - chippy
• Remove toilet, bath, and sink - plumber (probably could have done this myself but they were seriously disgusting and he didn't seem to mind!)
• Removed tiles and flooring - me
• Re-plaster - plasterer (mainly because of taking down/rebuilding walls)
• Install bath, shower, toilet, sink, and towel rail radiator - plumber
• Connect up the bath pump, the lights for the vanity cabinet, and put spotlights in - electrician
• Tile around the bath, shower, and half way up the wall the rest of the way round - tiler
• Decorate the rest and silicone - me

I took measurements, designed a configuration I liked, bought the bath, sink, toilet, shower, towel rail, tiles, lights I wanted. Plumber supplied all the extra pipework and the tiler provided the grout, adhesive and other bits.

I wouldn't go to anyone offering a renovation package. Speak to your friends and neighbours about their plumbers and painters, and get them in to quote you for removing and replacing a suite, and painting and tiling. Pinterest is your friend for design ideas, and you can get your suite etc from places like Plumb Centre, Victoria Plum, B&Q etc.
I've been stung by selecting tradesman from check a trade, my builder etc in the past, find yourself a locally recommended tradesman and keep them sweet, your life will be so much easier for it!

Following with interest...

Bathstore has gone into administration, so definitely not there!

We had our bathroom done last year. I found a plumber on check a trade who fitted everything and did the pipe work but I designed, selected and ordered everything myself. What sort of thing are you looking to do. I could have a little look for products that might suit your budget, style and bathroom dimensions :)

We used Wickes to design and fit the whole thing. They messed up, i called in their guarantee and they came back with their top fitter and replaced the whole lot.

It cost more than other methods, but i didn't have to coordinate a thing and when it wasn't right i could just insist it was made right (we got stung using a checkatrade gardener and ended up paying out again to get bits sorted)

I've just used the Villeroy and Boch bathroom planner to have a go at planning ours and it was very straightforward with the measurements of the room. I don't want to buy a bathroom from them, but it does 2D and 3D views, you can get a pdf emailed to you and they'll send you a cardboard model!

Find yourself a local self employed plumber. If no. Pipes are being moved then it will be an easy job.

Buy online. We just got our whole bathroom for £1700.

The bath we paid £319.20 in the sale, it's just gone back up to £1429!! Saved us shed loads.

Victoria plum is where we bought from and viyctorian plumbing are OK too. DH is a plumber so we don't pay labour luckily

We had ours done a few months ago. I found someone who had loads of positive reviews. We bought the tiles and suite ourselves and just paid for fitting and building supplies. We spent about £3500 in total. If you're in the NE Wales area PM me and I'll let you who who did it for us

Yes to finding yourself a good local plumber. Ours did it all including replacing damp, rotting floorboards, knocking all the tiles off fitting the suit and built in bathroom furniture. Only extras were the replastering and the tiling, but the plumber did the first fix, gave me the plasters number who did his bit, then the tiler, then plumber came back and fitted the shower valve and jets on on top of the tiles.

A good local plumber knows exactly what to do, when and has contacts for the other bits.