Totally new bathroom on a budget!?!

mamabunit

We bought our house back in August and the family bathroom and kitchen were first on our 'hit list' - quickly we realised that our two kids needed a decent space for their toys/homework etc so their bedrooms jumped to the front and since then we've ended up needing to buy a new car and fix the boiler. Argh!

So we're finally planning on attacking the bathroom in June. It's fairly small, just enough room for a normal sized bath, toilet and basin and at the moment it's FULLY tiled. The tiles are cracked, the grouting is mouldy, there's a temporary fix on a crack on the toilet and the sink pedestal is coming away from the floor - basically the whole room needs to be overhauled.

Are we completely crazy to consider totally DIYing? We did the kitchens in our last two houses by ourselves but we just made sure the sink, oven and hob were in place quickly and took our time with the rest of it. A bathroom scares me as we only have one other toilet and no other shower/bath so it'll need to be completed v v v quick! Any advice for a couple of newbie bathroom doer-uppers??

Ebe_Scrooge

mamabunit wrote: »

Are we completely crazy to consider totally DIYing?

Not at all. If you have some basic DIY experience, and you're just replacing things in the same place, then it's actually a pretty simple job. It becomes trickier if you want to start moving stuff around, and have to re-route water supplies, drainage, etc. But if the new "furniture" is going in the same place as the old, then it's not difficult at all.


Likewise with tiling. There are any number of "how-to" guides available online, and as long as you take your time and work methodically there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do a first-rate job.


Good luck :j

Aylesbury_Duck

I agree with Ebe Scrooge. I did exactly what you're considering some years ago. It wasn't too difficult, although I didn't achieve the level of finish you'd expect a professional to achieve on the tiling - I wish I'd done more homework on methods, but this was back in 2000 before I had the internet at home. With so many good tutorials on youtube now, there's more advice and examples available.

Plumbing was fairly straightforward because we weren't changing layout. I did take the chance to put isolators on all the pipework to make future maintenance easier.

My advice? Do it yourself, but bear in mind the following:

- do lots of research first so you know what to do, the likely pitfalls, etc.
- buy the right tools before you need them in an emergency!
- make sure you can turn the water off completely.
- don't rush it. "v v v quick" is not a good phase when it comes to DIY. I understand you can't be without the bathroom for a long period, but I'd plan a contingency for a couple of days if you can. Shower at a friend/relative's place for example? At work? At the gym?
- plan a logical order so that you can get the basics in place and room usable while it's completed. For example, get the bath plumbed in first so you can at least have (splash-free) baths, and use the downstairs toilet.

Good luck, but do take plenty of time to plan and execute it. If you rush it, chances are you'll be paying for a professional to put it right anyway.