The cost of installing a new bathroom
Refurbishing a bathroom, how much will it cost?
A question often asked on forums on the internet with no clear answer. An example of those is “I got a quote for £4500!!!! is that expensive??”
A typical answer would be, how much work is involved, which doesn’t really answer the question.
I have attempted to work out how much refurbishing my bathroom at home will cost. I wanted expensive stuff. Grohe or Hansgrohe taps, concealed units and all sorts of stuff. If you don’t know what a concealed unit is, I will answer it later in this post.
The plan of attack:
Know what you’re dealing with. Bathrooms are the most expensive rooms in the house per square foot/meter. FACT!
Get a measuring tape and start drawing a plan of your bathroom.
This is what I came up with.
Plain floor plan
| Width (M) | Depth (M) | Height (M) | Area (SQM) | ||
| Floor | 2 | 2.25 | 4.50 | ||
| Walls 1 | 2 | 2.6 | 10.40 | ||
| Walls 2 | 2.25 | 2.6 | 11.70 |
I wanted floor to ceiling tiles for that luxury look and feel. This gives me an idea of how much tiles I will need.
Next, I discounted the areas that will not be needed to be tiled. This included the door, the window, the area behind the bath tub.
| Width (M) | Depth (M) | Height (M) | Area (SQM) |
| Discounted areas | |||||
| Door | 0.91 | 2 | 1.82 | ||
| Window | 0.8 | 1.25 | 1.00 | ||
| Bath tub | |||||
| Wall discount 1 | 1.7 | 0.51 | 0.87 | ||
| Wall discount 2 | 0.7 | 0.51 | 0.36 | ||
| Floor discount | 1.7 | 0.7 | 1.19 |
The bathtub calculations may seem a little bit odd, but my bathtub is connected to the wall at 2 points in a corner so there is 2 wall areas to discount in addition to the floor tiles I will not need to cover.
Next I worked out the totals I need, I also included an extra margin for tiles breakage, areas I needed to cover but forgot to calculate etc. The last thing you want is to go back to the tiles shop to find that they’re sold out of the tiles you need!
| Actual | With margin | |
| Net Floor | 3.31 | 5 |
| Net Walls | 18.06 | 20 |
Now I worked out the costs of the tiles, I assumed that I will pay £20 per square meter.
| Actual SQM | With margin SQM | Actual | with Margin | ||
| Net Floor | 3.31 | 5 | @ 20 sqm | £66.20 | £100.00 |
| Net Walls | 18.06 | 20 | @ 20 sqm | £361.12 | £400.00 |
Now we have something to work with.
from this we can work out the grout and adhesive we need and plywood required for the floor.
| Tiles | £500.00 |
| Adhesive / £13 per 8sqm | £40.63 |
| Plywood | £50.00 |
| Other bits and pieces | £150.00 |
| £740.63 |
Now keep in mind, this is tiling only! Now we need the bathroom furniture (Toilet, bathtub, taps etc)
I got a quote from a local supplier for £1100 for all the furniture, this can vary depending on what you want etc. I wanted German solid taps like the ones you get in airports and posh hotels, quality costs money!
This is the situation so far:
| Tiles etc | £740.63 |
| Bathroom furniture | £1,100.00 |
| Total | £1,840.63 |
| No workmanship! |
Now I need to decide which bits need a plumber and which bits I can do myself!
Hope this has been helpful to someone. Attached is the Excel spreadsheet I have used to work this out.
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