How to refresh a small shower room?

Whiteley71

Hi,

We are starting our first internal reno work on our shower room, with a limited budget.

The room is small, old and a moldy and needs some real TLC.

We'd appreciate any advice on how to approach this task.

I've just replaced the showerhead and need to get the walls and surfaces sorted out.

Thanks 

Jules1011

Hello,

Once you have removed the mould & mildew, (exit mould sprayed, then wiped with a damp cloth sprayed with exit mould, leave it for an hour or so, then wipe with a clean damp cloth), you can re-paint with Bathroom mould resistant paint. White always good idea for small rooms, it looks clean and bright and makes small spaces look bigger too.If you buy un-tinted white base paint, it will be the same colour as ceilings, so no cutting in required.

Do you use your bath much? If you have showers more often.. While you mentioned you had a small budget, you could save some money by buying secondhand or change of mind/surplus fixtures off Marketplace, like the Shower head with a gooseneck, and wall mounted vanity, frameless glass shower screen heavily discounted price off Facebook Marketplace.

And keep looking on Marketplace and the local Buy & Sell Groups, and Gumtree until you find the right things at the right price, buying 1 or 2 at a time each pay, (& selling anything you no longer use in your garage, and with the current trend of de-cluttering, there's a lot around for free or for a low cost, projects that didn't go ahead, surplus Reno Materials, leftover tiles, etc are available for a small cost. It allows you to buy a little at a time around as budget permits. Bathroom fixtures, vanity in vgc 

To save money, you can paint existing tiles or re-grout with a contrast Black Grout or add a row of feature tiles in a texture or contrast colour.

Or to save the mess, you can tile over the existing tile with a waterproof membrane and a Plywood sheet cut to size over the existing wall tiles, screwed to the wall studs over tiles, so the new tiles have a level surface and a waterproof membrane (available as a paint on product too)

If you want to paint the existing tile, you must use a Tile Primer first. Then you can paint with mould resistant interior paint.

You can get the existing bath re-coated, but this is best a job for professionals for a new surface that will last, (you could check with a Bunnings Team member if this bath. You could use tile Primer and after it's had a few days to dry and cure, to spray paint the existing bath tub for the best finish with a can of spray paint 

Or if this is your only bathroom, it's a good idea to stay you need to get this Bathroom 

You can buy a secondhand bath for a lot less than the cost of resurfacing the existing bath though. The plastic baths are easily scratched, so best to look at ceramic bath tubs, or porcelain or the old claw foot cast iron bath tubs.

The wall hung vanities will make your bathroom look bigger, but it does pay to be a bit flexible on a tight budget, when you find a great deal on a secondhand materials, like bathroom vanity, sink with taps, 

Or, instead by removing the bath altogether, we had room for a much larger frameless glass shower screen.

We bought the brand new shower screen kit for a third of the new price off Facebook Marketplace. And the new (to us) IKEA vanity was a bargain.

Keep looking on Marketplace until you find the right things at the right price, buying 1 at a time as budget permits, or using Afterpay or Zip pay.

You can get at least 3 quotes and reviews by other customers too, if you add your bathroom tiling & waterproofing the walls, or grout removed on your existing tiles - and changed to white grout for a lighter brighter look, or once you have found a new bathtub or got a quote to resurface the green bathtub in white professionally

A vanity is much easier to remove and replace in the same day.

But if you want to remove the bathtub, and re-tile the floors and walls and fit a new bath, with qualified Tradies - This is a free service on serviceseeking.com.au for any kind of Tradies, with several quotes which can vary a lot.

Add photos and the dimensions of your floor and each wall, with the dimensions of your window too. The width and height of each wall too, and you can post the job (for a Tiler or plumber) once you have the new vanity, you need to turn the water off at the mains first to DIY the replacement of the vanity, sink and taps, and if you want to do any replacement of Bathroom fixtures and re-tiling, or even removing the grout and regrouting your existing tiles.

If/when you remove the bath it's a good idea to stay somewhere else unless you have another Bathroom. Our bathroom took 1 week to finish, with the demo (removing the bath, vanity and tiles, we did ourselves over one weekend), the waterproofing, replacing old terracotta pipes for PVC pipes, and the new tiling took 5 days, and the new vanity was put up by the plumber on the Saturday and my Husband put up the glass frameless shower screen, and the new make up mirror was up on the Sunday. 8 days from start to finish.

Or you can do it in smaller steps like the vanity replaced, and try painting the existing bath tub with tile-primer paint and then (watch a few videos on spraypainting to get the best finish) and sand then spray the existing bath.

If you are not happy with the finish, you have only spent small cost.

Get at least 3 quotes to remove the bathtub and replace it with a new modern bathtub or claw foot tub, or you can install a frameless glass shower screen onto a tiled shower floor or directly onto a Mondella Shower base.

Take a look at the difference at the before & after by removing the bathtub, and adding a large 1200x 900mm Shower.

Instead by replacing the old freestanding vanity with a wall hung bathroom vanity.

It makes the bathroom look bigger when you can see all the way to the wall.. And black & white tiles/white paint, doesn't date.. 

Finding budget plain white tiles, we tiled floor to ceiling, and contrasting dark charcoal floor tiles & white walls, and a feature vertical small tile in the shower screen gave the visual extra height in the bathroom. Or you could do a border horizontal Textured or feature tiles. 

We paid a tiler to waterproof & tile the bathroom, floor to ceiling, using the cheapest square white tiles but you could also paint the bathroom walls to save money.

After we removed the old shower, and the chocolate brown bath and the old vanity but you can save money if you are confident & watch DIY videos here.. 

We Renovated a dated 1960's  Bathroom with a dark brown bath and a small shower to look a lot more spacious bathroom, done on a small budget 

Hard to believe it's the same Bathroom! 

We did this budget bathroom Reno 11 years ago, and it still hasn't dated. You can do your bathroom renovation in stages,

I would start with painting the walls and ceiling in un-tinted white base paint, in mould resistant wet area paint. And removing the vanity with a wall mounted vanity or freestanding, you can change the handles & taps  if you find one for a bargain you want to upcycle to give it a makeover.

Building regulations require a waterproofing membrane in a bathroom, which will prevent rising damp or mould issues in behind the tiles. A ceiling exhaust fan should prevent future mould issues. 

"BEFORE"

"AFTER"

This walk mounted Vanity with a sink was an IKEA. By removing the bath, we had room for large frameless glass shower screen