KittyKatty's Profile

As someone who works as a designer/consultant for a bathroom store, I would strongly advise you all to avoid buying your plumbing fixtures and tapware online.

Unfortunately I see people come in on at least a weekly basis, they have bought their taps online and installed them, only to find months down the track that they have leaked behind the wall and the entire bathroom needs to be pulled apart to fix it up. Be smart about your renovation, do it right the first time.

Here are my top tips for saving money with a renovation:

Go to clearance centres for reputable plumbing suppliers. Most will have some sort of outlet available to the public, the products that end up here are ones that have been superseded by newer lines, or they didn't sell as well as the store thought they would. They are not cheaper because they are lacking in quality.

Be prepared. I am from Australia, here plumbers charge by the hour for their time. I assume it is the same internationally. Have the fixtures and fittings ready for when they arrive, they can go ahead and get the job done as quickly as possible. Be nice to those tradespeople, they are the people responsible for how your bathroom will work for many years to come. Buy them a coffee in the morning, you will be surprised how much being nice can make a difference in the final bill they charge you.

Keep things neutral. Like the article mentions, white tiles are a dime a dozen, and they will stay looking classic far longer than trends which come and go. You can add colour to the bathroom with towels, flowers, pretty pictures in frames, which are all a cheap replacement when you get sick of the colour and want a change.

Keep the floor plan as similar as possible to the existing one, if it works well but just needs an update on fixtures. Moving plumbing from one side of the room to another is costly, both in pipe work and the plumbers time.

Last but not least, get creative. I have seen customers purchase basins to sit on recycled dressers, light fittings from second hand stores, etc. My personal favourite was a customer who found an amazing concrete pot/sculpture, drilled out the bottom for a waste hole and sat it on some recycled timber as a vanity unit with some copper coloured taps. It looked amazing, it was unique and it saved her a bundle.