Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello,

We are looking to have our bathroom refitted. Get rid of the bath and put in a shower. It’ll need new floor and timing, new sink and toilet and a heated towel rack instead of radiator).

Can seasoned pros at ‘having work done’ please give me a child-like explanation of where we start with this (design, sourcing actual bathroom fittings, finding people to do the work, etc)?

@goddess Jasmine @kovacsC @jem something in the back of my mind says you might have had recent-ish work done.

We found local companies, called round, had them quote and hen had the knackered looking bloke with two show bathrooms installed in the back of his transit do it as we liked him the best and he wasn't a twat.

Oh no. That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid. :|

Or buy everything and call a plumber and say "install that"

There was a chap that was recommended, he did the floor for me. I will be getting a quote off him to fit it all out this year..

Honestly, I need someone to tell me what to buy. Our shower seems to work differently from any shower I have ever seen and I hate it, but I assume it’s that way for a reason. Plus we really need someone who knows how to make best use of the space as the room is tiny and there is no storage at all. I’m hoping the current set up can be improved on rather than swapped out, like for like.

Ah, that’s good if you had a recommendation. I’ll have to ask on the school chat board if anyone has a recommendation.

Wickes do the lot..

https://www.wickes.co.uk/bathroom/sale? ... lmEALw_wcB

Now we’re talking.

Has anyone has any experience of Wickes?

I got a quote off them, they were very expensive.

but

They did a design and a shopping list, so I could take it elsewhere. Which is good.

Yes, but I preferred the guy with the van

Ok, that’s good as an option then. If I can get it designed at Wickes and fitted by a knackered looking guy.

When we were looking around for kitchen stuff, Homebase turned out to be the cheapest on a like for like quote, and will do all the design and stuff for you if you take your measurements. Plus give you a nice printout to takeaway with you to show to other people...

Wickes was one of the most expensive in direct comparison.

Oh, that’s great to know. I thought Homebase was a garden centre only

Mine wasn't a complete refit as such. I had some rotten floorboards that needed dealing with where the old shower cubicle was pissing water everywhere, and knew I wanted a longer bath. I got my plumber in and said "this is what I want, is it feasible" - he said yes, so we sourced bits (the bath, more tiles etc) ourselves online and he did all the fitting. But definitely agree with asking around for recommendations; my guy is also a knackered(ish) bloke in a van. I'd used him before though, so knew he was a good guy.

We did exactly what you're describing, about 6 months ago. We also checked through friends for recommendations and ended up using a plumber who'd done a bathroom refit for a friend of our daughter's, and who's work they were very happy with. He managed the whole thing. He had a tiler and electrician that he always worked with, and he recommended a trade supplier he always used for the actual kit we needed to buy, as well as doing a survey and giving us a list of everything we needed to order from the supplier. He coordinated all the work, i.e. the strip out, plumbing, plastering the cieling and skimming the walls, the tiling and electrics. All we had to do was find someone to fit the flooring.

The work itself was a pain, but only because we had no bathroom for about 5 days, but luckily we have a downstairs loo, so didn't have to crap in a bucket or anything unsavoury like that.

I used Wickes six or seven years ago. I was happy with the design and glad that all the rest of it was sorted once I signed on the dotted line. I was particularly impressed with the rep's suggestion of a cupboard in a space I hadn't considered could hold one.

We went to a local independent bathroom place, ordered a list of really expensive stuff, and got details of a couple of local installer-builder types off them as we paid; got quotes off both and went with the guy we liked best, who then arranged to have the bits we ordered delivered as needed.

Worked well.

The bathroom we had installed in the office block was "yeah, stick a shower, sink, and toilet in there" and that was as far as the conversation went.

It sounds like if we can get the right people they might help with the guidance and organising, which I think is what we need.

B&Q an’ all. I have no experience of them, though. I do of Wickes, for a kitchen, mind. They did a decent professional job within a reasonable time frame. Done in a day or two, IIRC. Took my old shit out and took it with them too, which I appreciated.

When I looked at the Wickes site earlier they mentioned that they’d take the old one away, which seemed great.

I'm not a big lover of Wickes stuff personally, I found the build quality of their cheaper kitchens to be quite shoddy and had to return a lot of their cabinets, but of course, their bathroom ware might not be the same.

I'm a fan of using a knackered looking guy. I find that independent contractors generally take more pride in their work as they rely on word of mouth. Big companies just don't seem to care as much.

As for moving the bathroom around, you can probably do what you like, but it could just cost a bit more. Worth it to get what you want in my opinion, it can make such a difference.

We tend to source our bathroom fittings online. A lot from eBay to be honest. We're just in the middle of doing our shower room, and so far everything but the tiles and wood has been bought online. We're doing most of it ourselves but are getting trades in for the plastering and to get the new wiring signed off.

Think about what you want in there too, so things can be done in order. E.g. we know in our shower room we want a mirror that will demist, so that needs wiring, and at this stage, it barely costs anything because everything is stripped out, and we are putting in new wiring for the spotlights and extractor fan anyway. Etc.

I think recent experience with tradespeople (specifically the heating and gas engineer who emptied the entire chimney over our light carpet and then trod it around everywhere) left me feeling quite stung/untrusting, and I think that’s why I’m quite nervous of trusting the accountability of some independent tradespeople. They had a lot of good feedback and reviews, but I was so, so angry, not just at the shoddy job but the attitude.

I’ve done about a dozen bathrooms over the years and will respond more fully to this when I have time.

For now, take some pics of what is there. Measure the dimensions of the room and where the waterworks are and download the freeware version of sketchup.
It’s a remarkably easy to use 3d design package, with loads of helpful tutorials. Do the room layout on the first layout, and then each individual item on subsequent layouts. Lock each design and then you can hide or move stuff around.

More later

What I said was of course a generalisation from my own experience. There are no guarantees, which is why I prefer a personal reference (where possible) your parent's group is a good call.

It only takes one to break trust, unfortunately.

Thank you, Mr Snappa. I’ll definitely do this. I think because it’s about as small as a bathroom can be we are pretty restricted in what’s possible, so I have a funny feeling we’ll be putting a shower cubicle where the bath currently is but forced to leave the sink and toilet as they are, but hopefully trying this will give us some ideas. Thank you again!

Yes, of course. It’s a shame you’re not a bit closer as I’d be able to borrow your guy

That’s “layers” not “layouts”. It works like a simplified version of PS

Oh, ok, yes, that’s fine. I use Photoshop a lot so that shouldn’t be beyond me.

I think Sketchup Free is web based now

So… we’ve measured up and went just looking around B&Q today at what we might be able to fit in our teeny bathroom, and it turns out, not much. I spoke to a woman who said it was quiet and managed to get a design consultation on the spot. I had all the measurements with me in case. We were hoping that by cutting out the bath and having a shower we’d make room for some storage, as the bathroom has none at all, but in no way could it be configured that didn’t leave the space saved blocked off and inaccessible by the sink. In the end we settled on this. It’s a shame, but we don’t have many options because of the size of the room. The bathroom with the random suite, floor and wall tiles, shower, etc some sun at about £1,360, though they were just the fittings the B&Q person put in for sizing, so that could be more or less depending on what exact shower unit/door/sink (etc) we went for. The fitting however came in at £5.3-7.7k on top of that. She said we could find cheaper gutters and have us three sites to start our search.

So, that was helpful in sort of starting us having an idea of what we could do in the space (not much) and what shower size we could manage (not big).

Why cant the sink go next to the toilet?

It currently is. That printout pic shows it if we put it where the end of the bath currently is. If we leave the sink where it is then that corner is effectively boxed off inaccessible.

That was our original intention, and where the sink and toilet are right now, but she said it wouldn’t work as the sink butts right up to our current bath. A shower is wider, and even with a slimmer sink that space where the sink is in that mock-up would just be an inaccessible bit of floor space and impossible to clean.

This is it in its current form. It’s a really small space.

Put the shower up against the other end?

Here’s the top-down view.

Oh, that’s cropped awkwardly.

We discussed that, but I think she said that wouldn’t work because of the overlap with the window?

Trying again.

You could have one of those under sink shelving unit type things in the gap under the sink. That would give you more storage.

You can be creative with that though, treat the overlap bit as a piece of shower screen and fit a bit of glass there. The trouble with the b and q and similar design solutions is they won't go outside their modular boxes.

Also, 5 to 7 grand to fit a bathroom! I'd definitely be having a go myself for that much.

.

We looked at that, but the woman said the only problem that gives is that there isn’t then room to get and clean between the shower and the vanity unit, but it also stops that area venting probably and if the units get wet and arrant allowed to dry out the laminate on them will bubble and peel away.

So a little glass partition on the overlap to allow for a longer shower, do you mean?

There is a little ‘lip’ on the windowsill, I assume that would have to be cut flush and perhaps tiled? I wouldn’t mind that. Can you buy little overlap screens to fill that space, so you think?

This.

That's why you take the nice plans that B&Q do for you and give them to a real plumber

If I wasn't going to fit myself what I'd do is speak to a plumber about getting a quote to fit the stuff, you'd need them to do the shower, towel rad and sink then ask them about a tiler they like to work with. Between them they would probably be happy fitting the new shower tray and enclosure as well.
Try Victoria plumbing and ukbathroomstore (or loads of other online stuff, I've used both those with no problem though) for parts, I bet you could get the fittings and tiles for less than a grand.

The bathroom guy that Jem and I got in charged us just shy of £2,000 for remodelling our bathroom, and we had to buy the tiles and the new bath/shower screen on top, so all in it was about £2,500. Oh, and about £150 for the vinyl floor to be fitted.

£5-7K for fitting that is rip-off territory, IMO. What we had done isn't a million miles away from what you're doing there - we had a bath and shower removed (and the shower was recessed into the wall, which we didn't want to keep, so he had to build a new "false wall" and tile over it) and then a new bigger bath fitted, shower re-fitted to the false wall, shower screen attached and sink relocated. He then retiled all of the bits of wall that didn't have tiles on previously.

I don't know if our guy would be happy to travel out to you guys to do the work, but if you'd like his number I can pass it on and you can always drop him a line?

I'd maybe get a folding shower screen and cut a chunk out of that and glue it in. It would look better than I've made it sound! Especially if you get a pro to do it