New bathroom on a budget

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We need a new bathroom. It will almost solely be used by DS who is 16 as we have an en suite.

DH is delusional about how much it will cost and think we can do it all for £3k ( we are not DIY people so will need a professional). The quote we had was £4k just for the labour.

So DH wants to the do the bare minimum (replace the bath and shower) whereas I would like DS to have a lovely bathroom, given his skincare regime and how much time he spends in there.

Where is the compromise. I would like fitted furniture but realise that's pricey. Are there good outlets where you can pick things up cheaper, eBay etc?

I need to manage my expectations as much as DH.

If you are keeping everything where it currently is then that will save a bit of money but your husband is being unrealistic. With bathrooms it's usually half the money for labour and half for all the fixtures and fittings and all the other bits.
We have a lovely plain cheap toilet by twyfords which doesn't have the poo shelf issue that lots of modern ones do. It is very similar to this one: https://www.travisperkins.co.uk/toilets/twyford-option-close-coupled-cistern-ot2421wh-not-including-pan-or-seat/p/403939
What else do you need? Bath? Sink? Separate shower or is it over the bath?
Sink taps, bath taps, floor tiles, wall tiles, grout, tile adhesive, paint, loo roll holder, mirror, cabinet, shelf for shower, shower screen, tile trim?

When I asked about just ding bath and toilet they said that often taking bath out ruins the tiles.

I did mine about 2.5 years ago. I think the labour is the expensive bit - you can get a sink and toilet very cheap and if it's plain white you really cannot tell. Again if you get a plain bath they are not too expansive.

I think I paid about 2k for sink with vanity unit, toilet, bath and cupboard, and all the taps and fittings. That could have been got a fair bit cheaper as that was freestanding bath and floor standing taps.

It was from a trade place that also seeks direct to public. South London / Surrey borders.

How long before you plan to move house?
Is DS likely to go university and be absent for 50% year and bathroom hardly used?
I revamped a rental bathroom in August.
I replaced wc, washbasin and washbasin taps and bath taps. I replaced floor but kept existing tiles. We serviced the shower and changed the light fitting. Bath and shower screen remained but got new taps and plug. Total £1300.
Roca sanitary ware from City Plumbing.
I think your husband has a similar idea.

DS in year 11 so could be gone in a couple of years. I would like a nice bathroom for guests though. Secretly I'd like it to be my bathroom and leave DH to the en suite.

We currently have P shaped bath with an electric shower. Both need replacing and ideally we would switch to a normal shower.

I’d look at bathroom cabinets and basins from ikea, I think they’re excellent for the price. Use large format tiles, as they’ll be quicker to fit, and really shop around to get them as cheap as possible (I’ve recently seen some good deals on eBay).
However, the fixtures and fittings will be the relatively ‘cheap’ bit, and your main cost is going to be labour. As you want to replace the bath and shower a £3k budget is unlikely to cut it sadly; as you’ve discovered, this won’t even cover the labour these days. If there’s any way you could keep any of the existing fixtures that is the main way you will save money. Could you perhaps keep the bath, basin, and loo, and change the tiles, taps, shower, bath panel, toilet seat, lighting and bathroom cabinet? I’ve done this in the past, and it’s definitely the cheapest way to do it, and makes a surprisingly big difference to refreshing the room. If you bought one of the ikea bathroom cabinets you could save a bit by assembling it yourself and just having the fitters fix it to the wall (rather than pay them to assemble ikea furniture for you!) I’m into my skincare too, but this solution worked for me as it provided good storage, good lighting, and got rid of the manky old tiles!

Can I ask why you want to switch from an electric shower to a normal shower? Is it not powerful enough? Could you upgrade the cable feeding the shower? Ours is a 10.5kw in the children's bathroom.

Look online for fitted furniture, we are doing ours (DIYers, we have fitted, plumbed in and tiled lots of bathrooms over the years) we are buying made to measure from Paramount Bathrooms which isn't that much more expensive than their standard fitted furniture.

All our items were sourced from places like Plumbworld or direct from the manufacturer but using Quidco codes or sign up to our email and get 10% off.

We also used shower panels instead of tiles, it probably works out more expensive but less in labour because of how fast they install. We used RockSaltPrints who will put any image on an acrylic sheet or you can browse their designs. We had it cut to size as it centres the image to the sheet. Some of their designs are quite loud and vibrant but there are plenty of normal ones. We love ours, so easy to clean, just squeegee.

Watch some youtube videos of bathrooms being gutted out and installed, it takes days and requires knowledge and understanding which is what you are paying for with a bathroom fitter.

We had our done in the midlands last summer, bath and sink stayed in the same place but replaced for new, added a shower over the bath, fitted sink unit, vinyl flooring and wall panels instead of tiles. Had to have a stud wall rebuilt.

Labour and parts came to around £8k and took 9 days to do. There are a few places where they need to stop and wait for 24 hours to let plaster/grout/sealant dry before moving onto the next step. They also have to bring in electricians and plumbers at different points for light fixtures etc.

So we've had 3 bathrooms fitted in past year in our family, all well in excess of your budget.

The cheapest was £8k. The room was empty so there wasn't anything to dispose of or time to spend pulling it out because we had already done it (the idea being we would refit but my husband had a knee injury). We had a skip onside for other work so we're able to dispose of it at that time.

For 8k fitted we have a small 700 x 800 shower, beautiful tiling (but not expensive) from Topps, LVT floor, new toilet, same radiator, vanity unit, lighting, mirror and recharge toothbrush point.

My Dad had a new bathroom in his house and the reasonably good quality fittings themselves sourced from a builders merchants were 4k (large shower no bath), and the plumber was on top of that.

Bathroom panels are cheaper than tiles and don't need the walls to be made good. They go directly on battening and very quick for a professional to fit.

2021 my bathroom was done for £5k, Bath, electric shower added and plumbed in, and a new towels rail, toilet and sink vanity combo, paneling on room and ceiling, laminate on floor so it's quite wet roomesque but that's fine and quick to clean

Look on FB Marketplace locally, quite often you'll find a new bath typically £100 or less, ditto shower you can pick up a basin, vanity unit, toilet etc this way too, advantage being white is easy to match. For tiles a friend of mine bought plain white tiles and added a selection of surplus to requirements patterned/coloured free from Marketplace, these have been used as a border. There's a person near us sells vinyl offcuts for typically £20-50 enough for a small ensuite. If you can cut the cost of the items this way, you can spend a lot less than you'd think.

OP, I'd decide if there is anything at all within the existing set up you want to 'keep' and work with.
From the sounds of it, you are less keen on a revamp and want to start fresh. It's best to be honest. I also think you have to come clean and say what's driving you... while it would be great for DS, actually you plan on nabbing it for yourself, further down the line.
If you are elevating its standard to that of a main bathroom, and not a casual 'just for DS' type of affair, then maybe you can reprioritise an appropriate budget?

You're right. It's not suddenly going to be half price because I want it to be.

Hopefully if nothing moves, we can keep the flooring and most of the tiles. They're plain white anyway so we'd just be replacing like for like.

If you want to switch to a non electric shower, they will need to get into the wall to run the pipes. Plus tiles are likely to get damaged when switching the bath over. Can you get identical tiles to replace any that get damaged?

DS says he's happy to stick with electric shower so that might keep cost down.

The labour quote was £3500 so DH has accepted that he was being unrealistic. I've got bath, sink and toilet in the Drench sale.

Now just need to source tiles and flooring cheaply.

Are metro tiles still a think? They seem to be but worry it will look dated quickly as they have been around for a while now.

I have metro tiles and I like them! Mine are Matt white which I prefer to the gloss white

Metro tiles are definitely still a thing!
But if budget is a primary concern it would probably work out cheaper to go for a larger format tile- they'll be quicker to fit, so will require less labour.

Just reading with interest as I will be doing a similar project at some point. Have just done kitchen and leaned one new way of doing metro tiles is actually vertical rather than horizontal and either patterned or all lined up. You could also do them at 45 degree angle. I do think horizontal trad metro tiles look very 2010....

DH and I started renovating a completely, derelict property 3 yrs ago. Multiple bathrooms to re do. We did some stripping out of tiles/flooring and painting, but got the professionals to do the rest.

I go against an earlier post to buy cheap tiles! Our tiler was brilliant, but wouldn't fit if they'd been bought from B&Q, topps tiles etc. He said they are not only often not square, but also wonky- so don't fit flat on the wall. He also found that far more will shatter when being cut, so you need more than 10% contingency. Strangely, at the same time, a work colleague tried having B&Q tiles used and the tiler walked out due to so many being wonky.

Clearly, some brands are fine and not all high street tiles are awful, but I'd find an independent bathroom/tile place locally. You also don't need to tile floor to ceiling and can usually get away with the shower and around the sink or do a half height.

Metro tiles are a personal thing, but 3yrs ago when renovating- they were already on the way out! Smaller tiles means more grout to clean! Larger tiles, less grout and gives the illusion of a larger room.

For under sink cabinets- get drawers! Nothing worse than having to bend down and forage at the back of a low cupboard.

If the bathroom is small, consider hanging the door the other way, so it opens into the hall/bedroom. If a bedroom- a sliding door can work too. It saves 1m2 of floor space and is a safety feature if someone collapses inside.

I kept the old tiles but freshened the grout with a whitening pen and used leftover paint on the ceiling—it made a massive difference for almost nothing. Found some discounted fittings online and reused the cabinet.

For anyone in New Jersey looking to do something similar without blowing the budget, I came across homerenovation4u.com/bathroom-renovation-new-jersey and they seem to offer solid work without overcharging.