Should we renovate bathroom?

[Cholcis]

Family of 3 - 6yo daughter here. Just moved into what could be our forever home. Bathroom and kitchen haven’t been touched for at least 10 years, if not more. We have 20k savings but DH is currently unemployed and looking for work. I’m in full time work (40hrs) on minimum wage which will increase when I qualify at the end of the summer.

we’re looking to get the bathroom fully redone (tiles everything) and have been quoted £6k for a standard which will leave us with 14k of our savings. Should we go ahead and do the bathroom? We’re both not sure but it definitely needs a spruce up and neither of us are handy. See photos below.

We thought we’d leave kitchen until we have more savings in a few years.

Any advice is much appreciated!

edit: the vanity is old and the sink has hairline cracks, there are cracks in the floor tiles.

No, keep the savings for the more likely expensive surprise challenges that a house can bring e.g. boiler etc.

I would paint the vanity, personally I would have fun and go bright colour and silicone and seal the sink crack. Some nice towels, plants and it will look fresh.

Wait until both incomes are secure. It will allow you better nights sleep.

6k? That’s ridiculously cheap ATM! What does that include?

Another no from me. The only thing it needs is a declutter and a nice plant !

I would wait until you've both got jobs. It's liveable and not that bad.

You could just get the floor retiled for £300 or £400.

We're all different but the main thing that would annoy me in that room is the glass in the window. I'd get that swapped out for plain satin glass.

So the general consensus is to leave it until DH has a job and we have more savings? If I’m waiting, is there any point in getting a new vanity or new flooring if the ones we have are working, just dated? The floor could be regrouted but I was quoted £280 just for that. Again, asides from a crack that we cover with a mat and the grout, it’s fine. It just doesn’t feel like a bathroom. DH says we spend like 10 mins in it a day so why bother. I’m going to spend some time this weekend just declutterring. What do you think? Wait for a full refurb or do the tiles ans vanity now!

It looks like a high end bathroom when it was done. It’s a little dated but no issue. You could paint the vanity if you really wanted.

when we moved into our old house it ‘needed’ a new bathroom, like yours it was a little dated and out of style. We lived there 8 years and did a full renovation on the whole house (including extension and loft conversion). When we sold it it still had the same bathroom and it still needed replacing.

You don’t have the financial stability right now, and it doesn’t need doing.

So you didn’t do anything with it for 8 years? Not even grout or anything? How did you live with it? I struggle with OCD so my head is just “get it done” like it is with everything in the house. We’re focusing on dd room, putting a new carpet in and painting, as well as getting carpet in the living room as we generally spend most of our time in there. We’re going to remove the old wallpaper in the kitchen during the summer and repaint ourselves then maybe do the bathroom if we have more savings next year.

It's fine. Your money could be better spent on other things. Surely you have more important things to think or worry about !

I think your bathroom is fine. It's not to your taste and a little dated but it's serviceable. Mine is worse!

I had a new bathroom installed in my favourite house and the 2 weeks it took nearly did me in.

In your position I'd wait until you are more financially secure.

We might have redone the silicone, but anything we did do was more of a cosmetic/DIY job.

how did we live with it? Easy - it’s not a room you spend a huge amount of time in, there wasn’t anything functionally wrong with it. It had a fairly hideous but statement corner Bath thing going on, but ultimately it wasn’t in a bad enough state and to begin with we didn’t have the money. When we did have the money we chose to prioritise other things.

we had it priced up at least a couple of times when we were there but it was always too much expense or too much upheaval.

the house we ended up moving to had actual disgusting bathrooms (think salmon pink bath, shag pile carpet, knee deep scum). We did those bathrooms. But yours is fine.

You say you have OCD, and just want it "done". I couldn't stand to have bleach, lotions,tubes everywhere. You have plenty of storage there,put everything away.

Not sure you understand what OCD is. It’s not just wanting things to look tidy. It’s obsessing over every minor detail. You can’t see the gaps in the grout or bits falling off the tile seals around the toilet.

Yes, I know exactly what OCD is trust me ( you speak to my DH, when I measure the duvet each side of the bed, and spend time obsessing the towels not being hung right.

Your bathroom is better than the one we inherited when we bought our house in 2013. The old lady had it done in 1996, peach suite, peach carpet, floral curtains, bloody awful floor to ceiling tiles and a papered ceiling.

We renovated it in 2018, by which time the wallpaper had come unstuck due to a teenager having long steamy baths, it looked awful.

Don’t touch your savings, it honestly looks fine. I’d live with this for many more years 😬

It’s tired but fine. Be sensible and wait but make sure you fix any grouting and seals meanwhile.

Re grouting is easy, you can do that yourself for almost no money or buy an end of roll bit of vinyl flooring and cover it up. Re doing the silicone is pretty easy too if you watch a few tutorials. Massive de clutter and some new towels from TKMaxx, all hung neatly on the towel rail and a plant in the window. Have a look on Patch plants website for something that likes to live in the bathroom. Job done for a good while

Gently, though, you know that with OCD it's not a situation where if you just do what it compels you to do everything will be fine. That can work for a while, when the demands it makes are quasi-manageable, but they will get bigger and consume more and more of your life. The point when it's telling you to rip out a completely serviceable bathroom at a time when you can't afford it is definitely not the moment to listen to it. Literally a whole thread full of people here have said this isn't a good Idea right now, and how often does everyone on Mumsnet agree?

I know that is very difficult and if you haven't already had therapeutic help with your OCD, I would be happy to share a link where you can find local services.

Do fix any actual defects like the grout gaps, certainly, but if a whole new bathroom is genuinely feeling like the solution here then I really recommend finding a different way to manage your OCD because that can't be the way forward for your whole life.

It looks up to date and even nice to me OP....maybe this means I'm getting old?!?

It’s hard to be certain from photos but the bathroom looks pretty good quality and well fitted as well as being v neutral. It is a little dated I guess but what does that really mean? There’s a bit of a danger that this relatively new trend of accelerating decor fashions ( effectively fast fashion for houses) means you just end living with lower quality fittings that you have to change more often.

It is quite a small bathroom and that vanity is good as it’s got so much storage. You could get something smaller but where will all your stuff go?

I would definitely not prioritise this. The bathroom is honestly fine- just get someone over to touch up the grouting if needed. A lot of handymen will do this.

I would just make sure the bath sealant is in tact and there's no gaps in any of the tile grout. You don't want water seeping behind tiles or bath.

Agree with others, keep your savings for just-in-case until your other half settles into a new job.

I don’t have OCD, but meant kindly I couldn’t bear the clutter in there, or the mismatch of towels. Tinsel, I get it, but no. Spotless, fresh and clutter free will feel so much better.

I’d give myself a max budget of £200 to replace towels, bath mat, minor repairs to do yourselves and maybe even give it a fresh paint if it would help.

It would be a waste to replace the vanity for £££s or any major tiling.

We’ve replaced three bathrooms and a loo in this house over 9 years. One of them had pink bath etc, faux gold taps and lino. Set my teeth on edge for years. It cost a lot more than 6k to remodel that one, but I do love it now. Just bide your time, that’s my advice.

We are all pretty much in agreement here,we were asked and we replied. Poster doesn't think I know what OCD is, I really do. I also know what it's like to have renovations done,if you are like this,it's far worse than living with what you have! I was working a 12.5 hour night shift nursing busy acute ward,50 mile drive home,DH had a commute 40 miles in rush hour 5 days a week. We needed a new boiler,it was 25 years old, unable to get spares. It took up a huge amount of my tiny kitchen wall. We had it moved to the loft. Bought new kitchen,he had to dig up the concrete floor to lay new pipes for drainage. It's an open plan bungalow, kitchen at the end of the living room,no where to hide or block it off. It took 4 months! I had to have electrics extended and new junction box, because I went for all electric and induction. Gas supply removed by gas safe fitter. I washed up in the bath on my hands and knees, told him I would keep the pink 60s bathroom rather than go through that again. Trust me,it wasn't like yours! Tiles were cracked, falling off daily. Bath,sink, toilet all a different colour, rubber shower hose, leaky on taps. Apart from the electrics for the shower pump,he did everything. He's a perfectionist,room was stripped completely, just a toilet where we tipped water down from the outside water butts to flush.

I’m not saying you don’t know what ocd is because everyone is different. It’s just my ocd is different and I’m sorry if I came across that way.

Did the bath seal when we moved in as it was rotten. Not gaps in the grout by the shower/bath, only near the toilet but not where water can get in. Had a new extractor fan installed yesterday as the old one wasn’t great. Might get some grout this weekend and regrout the floor provided DH let’s me - it’s all we have talked about for weeks and he’s getting fed up. He just doesn’t want to do anything to the house now for a while. We’ve got carpets for downstairs and dd room to come soon and then we want to paint the kitchen in the summer as the previous owner did a terrible job. But again, I work full time and dd doesn’t like to play alone so I rarely have a free moment.