How to revamp your bathroom on a budget

Bathrooms, along with kitchens, can be some of the most expensive rooms to renovate and redesign in a house. Thankfully, there are ways to revamp on a budget – here’re a few that we thought might help you out.

Change your bathroom fittings

Over time, taps showers can become tarnished and dull, especially if you have particularly hard water. Changing your bathroom fittings can be a cost-effective way of sprucing up the whole bathroom, with practical benefits as well.

There are plenty of affordable options like upgrading the toilets, new tiles etc., – if you’re unsure about what to pick, take a walk around your local showroom. There’s almost always something that’s on sale, and if not, you can always take your search online.

The walls

While you might think the only way to go is with bathroom tiles, an excellent alternative solution is to use bathroom wall panels. As they can be laid out in one big sheet rather than one by one, the time it takes to install them is massively reduced.

Additionally, bathroom wall panels tend to be cheaper per square metre, and as they’re quicker to install if you’re paying a professional it’ll end up being a lot more cost-effective. That being said, bathroom wall panels can feasibly be installed by anyone with a decent bit of DIY knowledge, resulting in further savings.

Paint your bathroom

Bathrooms are constantly subject to high humidity levels. While you should ensure that you’ve got a proper ventilation system in place, it does mean that the paint in these spaces can start to look tired and worn out sooner than in other areas of the house.

Painting your bathroom is a quick and cost-effective way of freshening it up. Make sure that you prep it properly, with lots of dust sheets and masking tape. Also, make sure that you use moisture and mould-resistant paint that’s designed for bathrooms – normal paints will flake and peel in next to no time.

Redo the grouting

You can scrub your bathroom for hours and hours, but if there’s mould or grime deeply embedded in the grout, it’ll be almost impossible to get it out. Dirty grout is unsanitary and can make an otherwise clean and new bathroom look old and badly kept.

Luckily, applying new silicone is relatively easy, you just need to get a hang of it. You may be able to add another layer to the existing one, depending on how thick it is. If not, you can scrape it out with a blade, clean and dry the new surfaces, and apply new silicone.

Do the demolition work yourself?

If you’re getting a professional in to completely redo the bathroom, and you don’t mind getting a bit dirty, consider doing the demolition work yourself. You can likely save around a day or two’s labour for the plumber, cutting costs significantly.

Just make sure you don’t break any pipes; if possible, it might be worth turning the water off for that room. Other than that, get ripping. Put all the debris in rubble sacks, and remember not to overfill them – it might be easy to lift them standing still, but you’ve got to carry them outside, to the car, and then move them again at the recycling centre.

Following any of the tips above can help you save money on your bathroom renovation. Doing parts of the job yourself can be good fun, and save you a fair bit of cash.