Small bathroom renovations in Sydney

Around 1.5m × 2.5m, or roughly 5m² and under. That is the standard footprint in most Sydney units and apartments, and in the original bathrooms of a lot of older houses.

According to the 2021 Census, more than 21% of NSW dwellings are apartments, the highest proportion of any state, so well over a million Sydney residents live with a bathroom around this size.

Between $20,000 and $60,000 for a room up to 5m², depending on the quality of fixtures and whether the layout changes.

Keeping the plumbing where it is puts you at the lower end. Moving the toilet, or converting a shower-over-bath into a walk-in shower, moves you up the range. That figure covers a complete room: demolition, waterproofing, tiling, fixture installation and painting, delivered as a fixed-price written quote.

Because the cost is labour and compliance, not floor area.

A 5m² room needs the same project management, the same demolition, the same rubbish removal, the same curing time for screed and waterproofing, and the same number of waterproofing visits — floor, walls, grout, silicone. The same licensed plumber, electrician, waterproofer and tiler each attend and each charge for their time regardless of how big the room is.

You do use fewer tiles. But that saving is often cancelled out by the extra time it takes to work in a confined space.

Yes. In an apartment the bathroom is one of the highest-impact rooms for both daily life and resale value, and in a small room a fixture budget goes considerably further because you are buying less of everything.

The bigger return in a compact room comes from layout decisions rather than expensive fittings. Getting the set-out right is what makes a small bathroom feel generous.

Often, yes. We can take space from an adjoining hallway, bedroom, linen cupboard or laundry, or convert a laundry into a combined bathroom and laundry.

In a unit this depends on which walls are structural or common property, which we assess on site. We visit your home, work out which walls can be moved, adjusted or removed, and include it in your free quote before you commit to anything.

It can be done and we have done it. The trick is a compact 1400mm bath and rethinking the vanity wall so the bath is not competing with the basin for the same run of floor.

Whether it works in your room depends on the door swing, the window position and where the floor waste sits. We will tell you honestly at the quote stage if it will make the room feel cramped rather than luxurious.

The ones that free up visible floor and remove obstructions:

• Wall-hung vanities and toilets, so you see more floor
• A frameless fixed panel instead of a hinged shower door, which removes the swing clearance — usually the single biggest space win
• A wall niche for bottles instead of shelving that projects into the room
• Floor-to-ceiling tiling for an unbroken surface
• A larger window, skylight or glass brick wall for natural light
• A slimline ceiling fan sitting flush with the ceiling

14 to 28 days, with most finished around 21. A small room is not meaningfully faster than a large one.

The time is not spent laying tiles, it is spent waiting. Screed, render and waterproofing membranes have manufacturer-specified cure times that cannot be compressed, and your custom shower screen can only be measured once the tiling is finished, then it has to be made.

No, and we would be cautious of anyone who says yes.

Waterproofing cure times and the trade sequence cannot be shortened, no matter how small the room. A five-day job is a cosmetic refresh — new tapware, a new vanity, fresh paint — not a renovation. Anyone guaranteeing two weeks for a full strip-out is cutting a corner somewhere behind the tiles.

Same reason a small bathroom does. The labour and compliance are identical, and the room area is a small part of the total cost.

Ensuites also tend to include premium fixtures and custom storage more often than main bathrooms do, which closes the gap further.

Usually yes, for any work involving waterproofing or plumbing. Most owners corporations treat a bathroom as a major renovation requiring approval before work starts.

We prepare the documentation strata committees ask for, so your application is not held up waiting on paperwork from your builder.

The paperwork required is the same regardless of room size, but it comes up most often on the compact apartment bathrooms we renovate every week. We put together a strata pack to support your application to the owners corporation or building manager. It includes:

• A written scope of works
• Our builder's licence and the relevant trade licences
• Public liability insurance certificate
• Home Building Compensation insurance certificate
• Waterproofing details and certificate of compliance
• A work schedule with start and finish dates and committed working hours, typically 7am to 5pm, adjusted to your building's rules
• A waste removal plan
• A common-property protection plan covering lifts, lobbies, hallways and floors

Floors and common areas are covered in professional floor wrap. Lifts are generally covered by the strata. This is the paperwork most committees ask for, so having it ready usually speeds up approval.

Possibly, and we are upfront about it rather than discovering it halfway through.

In an apartment the drainage stacks, the floor slab and some walls can be common property or structural. Relocating a vanity, toilet or floor waste can mean cutting into the slab or connecting to a common stack.

Where that applies we tell you in writing before work starts, keep penetrations to the minimum needed, and make sure the work is signed off by the right licensed trade. If a change touches a structural element we arrange or recommend a structural engineer. Where we can avoid structural changes we will always suggest that path first — if there is access below we core-drill rather than cut the slab.

Waterproofing is built into every bathroom we do, never treated as an optional line item, and it matters most when there is somebody living underneath you.

We install a complete system that exceeds Australian Standard AS 3740, developed over years of trial and error. It is a two-layer membrane applied directly to the subfloor, left to cure before the sand and cement bedding goes down, then a further membrane layer on top of the bedding — a sandwich rather than a single coat.

The work is carried out by a licensed waterproofer, and we photograph the finished membrane before any tiling goes down so there is a clear record. On completion you receive a certificate of compliance and the photographs for your own files and for strata.

We can, but we recommend against it, and we will explain why before you decide.

Tiling over old tiles means building on top of old waterproofing with no way to know how much life it has left, and no way to guarantee against a future leak. The adhesion methods used are also unreliable: a primed surface may hold for months, but tiles laid this way commonly crack or detach over time.

In a small upstairs bathroom or an apartment, that is somebody else's ceiling. Stripping back to the substrate and re-waterproofing costs more upfront, but it is the only way we can stand behind the work.

There are three options: a ceiling-mounted heat, fan and light unit, electric underfloor heating, or in-wall heating behind the tiles.

Rick's honest take for a small room is the heated towel rail. You get a warm towel after every shower and it keeps towels dry between uses, which genuinely helps with moisture and mould in a compact space. Underfloor heating feels luxurious, but in a room with only a couple of square metres of exposed floor you are paying a lot for a small area of warmth.

Usually yes, and we will always do our best to conceal the pipework inside the wall.

In some situations it cannot be moved. Strata restrictions, a single-skin brick wall or undersized piping can all prevent it, and single-skin walls are common in older Sydney unit blocks. We assess this during your on-site quote and anything affecting the outcome is listed on your written quotation, so there are no surprises on handover day.

Yes. The room is out of action for the full construction period.

Small bathrooms are more often the only bathroom in the home, so tell us at the quote stage if that is your situation. We can sequence the work so the toilet is reconnected as early as possible, and plan the tiling and waterproofing window around you. Most clients stay living at home throughout — your water and power stay connected, only the bathroom is unusable.

No. Your quote is a fixed price, and it includes allowances for the common unknowns we have met over 17 years of renovating.

The things genuinely outside it are strata or council application fees, asbestos (which is only found once an older room is opened up), concealed damage behind walls or under the floor that could not be seen at quoting, structural surprises in an older building, and any change you make to the agreed scope after work has started.

If a variation comes up we price it and get your written approval before doing the work. Some companies quote low and hit clients with large variations once the room is demolished. We would rather be upfront about the real cost from day one.

Yes, and we would encourage you to. Every licence on your job can be checked yourself through the NSW Fair Trading licence check, and we are happy to provide copies for your strata records.

• Builder, kitchen bathroom laundry renovator: 217859C
• Plumber: 217859C
• Electrician: 377606C
• Waterproofer and tiler: 283897C
• Plastering: 302022C
• ABN: 89 478 782 763

We also carry $20 million public liability insurance through HIA, and for residential work over $20,000 we take out Home Building Compensation cover through iCare before work starts. You get the certificate before any deposit is paid.

Every renovation comes with our 10-year workmanship guarantee, which sits on top of the statutory warranties you have under NSW home building law — six years for major defects and two years for other defects under the Home Building Act.

Workmanship covers things like a towel rail coming loose, grout failing in an area, or shower screen hinges becoming faulty. It excludes wear and tear and misuse. Product warranties from manufacturers pass directly to you.

At handover you get your certificates and warranties as a complete record for yourself and for strata. Because Rick and Rob own the business and did the work, there is no chasing a departed subcontractor if something ever needs attention.