Most people choose a bathroom by looking at tiles. That is the fun part, and there is nothing wrong with it. But the tiles are the last two days of the job, and they are not what decides whether you are happy with the room in ten years.
What decides that is everything underneath. The fall of the floor. The waterproofing membrane. Where the pipes run. Whether the frame was checked before the sheeting went on. None of it shows up in a photo, and all of it shows up eventually.
Here is what actually happens in a bathroom renovation, in the order it happens, and where the decisions that matter really sit.
Why Bathrooms Cost More Than People Expect
A bathroom is the smallest room in most houses and one of the most expensive per square metre to renovate. That surprises people, and the reason is worth understanding before you start pricing anything.
Every trade comes through a bathroom. Demolition, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, waterproofing, tiling, plastering, glazing, painting. In a big open living area you might have three trades. In a room the size of a car parking space you have eight or nine, and most of them cannot start until the one before them has finished.
That sequencing is the real cost driver. It is not that the materials are exotic. It is that you are coordinating a queue of specialists through a two by three metre space, and every day of slippage in one trade pushes everyone behind it.
The second reason is that bathrooms are wet areas. Wet areas carry compliance requirements that a bedroom does not. Waterproofing has to be done to standard, by someone qualified to do it, and it has to be documented. That is not a step you can compress.
The Question That Changes Your Whole Budget
Before anything else, there is one question that moves the price more than tile selection ever will.
Are you keeping the plumbing where it is?
If your new shower goes where your old shower was, and the vanity and toilet stay in roughly the same positions, the job is significantly more straightforward. You are working with existing waste points and existing water supply.
The moment you move the toilet to the other wall, you are into the floor. That means cutting concrete or working under timber, relocating a waste that needs a specific fall, and sometimes discovering that the fall you need is not achievable without building up the floor level. On a slab, moving a toilet is a genuinely significant piece of work.
None of this means do not move it. Sometimes the old layout is simply bad, and living with a bad layout for another twenty years to save on one line item is a poor trade. But you should make that decision knowingly, at the design stage, rather than three weeks in when the walls are open.
If you are unsure, the honest advice is to get someone to look at the room before you commit to a layout. An hour of assessment early is worth more than any amount of pinning ideas.
Waterproofing Is the Part You Are Really Paying For
If you take one thing from this article, take this. The waterproofing is the job.
A bathroom is a room where you deliberately spray water at the walls every day for decades. The only thing standing between that water and your house frame is a membrane a couple of millimetres thick, applied before the tiles go on, that you will never see again.
Done properly, it lasts the life of the room. Done poorly, it fails quietly. Water gets past the membrane, sits in the wall cavity, and does its work out of sight. You do not find out in the first year. You find out in year four or five, when the skirting in the next room starts to swell, or a musty smell appears that you cannot locate, or a tile finally lifts.
By then the repair is not a bathroom repair. It is a bathroom repair plus whatever the water has reached.
Waterproofing in Victoria has to be carried out to the relevant Australian Standard, and there are specific requirements for shower areas, floors and wall junctions. There is a curing period before tiling can begin, which is one of the reasons a bathroom cannot be rushed. If someone tells you they can waterproof and tile the same day, that should end the conversation.
Ask your builder who does the waterproofing, whether they are qualified for it, and whether you will get documentation. A builder who does this properly will answer without hesitating, because it is one of the parts of the job they are quietly proud of.
This matters more than it used to. Under Victoria’s current rules, a builder can be directed to rectify defective work for up to ten years after completion. Waterproofing failure is the classic example of the defect that surfaces years later. That timeframe has changed how carefully the industry treats it, and it should change how carefully you ask about it.
The Order Things Happen
A typical bathroom renovation runs roughly like this.
Strip out. Everything comes out, down to the frame in most cases. This is fast and satisfying and generates a startling amount of rubbish.
Assessment. With the walls open, you find out what you are actually dealing with. Frame condition, existing waterproofing, any water damage that was already there, the real position of services. This is the point where a job occasionally changes scope, and it is why an honest builder builds some allowance into the conversation early rather than pretending nothing will be found.
Rough-in. Plumber and electrician run everything that needs to sit inside the walls. Pipes, drains, wiring for lights, fans, heated towel rails, underfloor heating if you are having it. Get your decisions locked before this stage. Moving a power point after rough-in means opening a wall you just closed.
Frame and sheet. Any framing changes get done, then wet area sheeting goes on.
Waterproofing. Membrane applied, then left to cure. This is a hard stop in the schedule.
Screed and tiling. Floor falls are set, then wall and floor tiling. This is usually the longest single trade on site.
Fit-off. Tapware, toilet, vanity, shower screen, mirrors, accessories. The room suddenly looks finished in about two days, which is why people underestimate everything before it.
Paint and finish. Ceiling, any painted surfaces, silicone, final clean.
For a standard bathroom with no major structural change, a realistic run is a few weeks on site, not a few days. Add time if you are moving plumbing, add time if the assessment turns something up, and add time if you are waiting on a tapware or tile order. Product lead times cause more delays than trades do.
Where People Genuinely Waste Money
Changing their mind after rough-in. The single most expensive habit in renovation. Decisions made at design stage cost nothing. The same decision made after the walls are closed costs real money.
Ordering product late. A tile that is out of stock stops the entire job at its longest stage. Order early, take delivery early, and check the whole order when it arrives rather than the top box.
Choosing tapware on looks alone. Some very attractive fittings are difficult to service and have no local parts availability. In ten years you want to be able to replace a cartridge, not the whole tap.
Skipping the exhaust fan upgrade. A properly sized, properly ducted fan is cheap and prevents a genuine mould problem. An undersized one that vents into the roof cavity creates a different problem somewhere else in the house.
Spending everything on finishes and nothing on the parts that fail. Nobody has ever regretted good waterproofing. Plenty of people have regretted expensive tiles over bad preparation.
Do You Need a Permit?
Usually not for a straight bathroom refresh where nothing structural changes and the layout stays put. Replacing fixtures, retiling and repainting sit outside permit territory in most cases.
You move into permit territory when the work becomes structural, when you remove or alter a load-bearing wall, or when you extend the footprint of the room. Plumbing work carries its own compliance requirements regardless, and your plumber should be providing a compliance certificate for the work they do.
If you are not certain which side of the line your project sits on, find out before you start. It is a short conversation now and an expensive one later.
The Practical Summary
A good bathroom renovation is mostly decided before the first tile is laid. Settle the layout early, be realistic about what moving plumbing involves, ask direct questions about waterproofing, and order your product well ahead of when you think you need it.
Do those four things and the rest of the job tends to look after itself. Skip them and you spend the project reacting.
Roweanne Builders has been renovating homes in Shepparton and across the Goulburn Valley since 1980, and bathrooms are one of the jobs we get asked about most. If you are weighing up a renovation and want a straight answer about what your room actually needs, we are happy to have that conversation.
Thinking about a bathroom renovation in Shepparton? Have a no-pressure chat with Roweanne Builders. Get in touch on (03) 5822 2225.