The Topology Guide · Bathroom Renovations
A bathroom is the smallest room in most homes and the most expensive per square metre. The good news is that the order of the work is always the same, whatever the budget, let’s discuss…
A bathroom is also the least forgiving room in the house: almost everything is fixed, tiled over or plumbed in, so a decision made late is a decision made twice. Get the order right and it is one of the most straightforward projects you can take on. Get it wrong and you end up paying someone to undo work that was finished last week.
Here is the sequence we use on every bathroom project, and the questions worth answering at each stage.
The order
Five steps, in sequence.
Get the layout finalised before a single builder starts
The most useful thing you can do is have a layout agreed before anyone picks up a tool. Draw it yourself using software like Renovate, or bring in a designer to do it properly — our e-design packages start at £299 per room and include a full layout. Then get your builder round to quote against that layout, rather than against a conversation.
By this point you want decisions made on: shower tray or wet room; whether any walls are moving; what plumbing needs removing or re-routing, and where the waste falls; and any new hard-wired lighting, because that dictates first fix electrics. A quote given against a finished layout is a quote you can actually hold someone to.
Choose your tiles, fixtures and fittings — then send them to your builder
With the layout signed off and a labour figure in hand, start pulling the specification together. Before anything goes in a basket, send the whole list to your builder.
You are asking two questions: is all of this doable in this room, and does your price change because of it? A handmade zellige with uneven edges, a large-format porcelain that needs a wet cut and two people to lift, a brassware finish that needs a particular valve behind it — each of these adds labour. Far better to hear it now than on the day.
Order your first fix items first
First fix is everything that disappears into the wall or the floor, and it is what holds a job up most often. Shower trays and wet room formers, shower valves, concealed cisterns and frames, and any wall-mounted taps.
Order these as soon as costs are agreed. Your builder cannot set out the walls until the actual valve is in their hands — the boxing, the tiling and the position of everything else all follow from it.
Next, the tiles and grout
Tiles come once first fix is on site or on its way. Order around 10% more than your measured area to cover cuts and breakages, and keep the offcuts — the same batch will not be there in two years.
Order adhesive and grout at the same time, and check lead times on anything handmade or imported. Specialist tiles are the single most common reason a bathroom sits half-finished.
A small thing that makes a big difference: match your grout to your tile colour. It is the cheapest upgrade in the room, and the one nobody thinks of.
Everything else last
Vanity units, basins, mirrors, lighting, towel rails, shelving, hooks and accessories. These are the pieces you can adjust latest without holding anyone up, and leaving them until the end means the money you have left is being spent with the room already taking shape in front of you.
The honest bit
Where it usually goes wrong
Nine times out of ten it is the same thing: a builder gets booked in before anything has actually been planned, and then everything happens at once. Decisions get made on the hop, orders go in late, and the trades end up standing in an empty room waiting on a valve that is three weeks away.
That is where the stress comes from, and where the costs start climbing. A half-finished bathroom is rarely a money problem to begin with — it is a sequencing one. Wasted days on site that you are still paying for, work done twice, and the logistics of it all landing on whoever happens to be at home. Plan it first, then book the builder, and most of that simply does not happen.
If you would like a second pair of eyes on a layout before you commit to it, get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether you need us.
Planning a bathroom this year?
Our e-design packages start at £299 per room and include a full layout, elevations and a specification your builder can price against.
See our packages Get in touch