CAIRNS BATHROOM RENOVATIONS, DONE ONCE
Complete bathrooms for houses and units across Cairns and the northern beaches. One team from strip-out to handover, and a written quote before anything comes off the wall.
Call 0468 047 067
- Certified waterproofing
- Written quotes
How we work
- Certified waterproofing
- One team, one contact
- Written before we start
- Specified for the humidity
How a bathroom actually gets built
The third step is the one most quotes leave out, and it is the one that decides whether the price you were given is the price you pay.
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You tell us about the room
Roughly how big it is, what is in it now, and what you want changed. A photo of the bathroom as it stands answers most of what we would otherwise have to ask on the phone.
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We measure it, then quote in writing
A bathroom cannot be priced off a photograph, so we come and look at it properly. What you get back is a written scope: what is being removed, what is going back in its place, and which fixtures sit at which tier.
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Strip-out, and the honest conversation
This is the step most quotes pretend will not happen. Once the wall linings are off we can finally see what is behind them, and in older Cairns houses that is sometimes rot, a perished membrane, or pipework nobody has looked at since the seventies. You get told the day we find it, with what it costs, before any further work goes in on top of it.
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Rough-in, waterproofing, and the wait
Plumbing and electrical are roughed in, then the membrane goes on and has to cure properly before anything covers it. That wait is not slack in the schedule. Tiling onto a membrane that has not gone off is one of the most common reasons a bathroom fails in its second year.
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Tiling, fit-off, handover
Tiling and grouting, then tapware, screen, cabinetry, mirror and doors. At handover you get the waterproofing certificate and the paperwork for the fixtures, rather than a fortnight of chasing somebody for it.
Bathrooms, showers and wet areas
If the room is at the end of its life, start with a renovation. If something is leaking now, start with the shower.
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Full Bathroom Renovations
The whole room taken back to the frame and rebuilt, with one contact running every trade in sequence.
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Small Bathroom Renovations
Getting a genuinely tight room to work, using layout and fixture choice rather than pretending it is bigger.
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Ensuite Renovations
The second bathroom, renovated around the fact that the room it opens off is still being slept in.
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Shower Replacements
Taking out a failed shower or an unused bath and rebuilding the wet area from the substrate up.
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Leaking Shower Repairs
Finding where the water is really going, then repairing it or telling you plainly that a repair will not hold.
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Bathroom Waterproofing
The membrane under everything else, done to the standard, checked before tiling and certified in writing.
The rules we work to on every bathroom
Not an offer. This is simply how the job runs, and it is the same on a shower reseal as on a full renovation.
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You see the price before we see the walls
The scope is written and agreed before anything comes off the wall, itemised down to which fixtures sit at which tier.
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You hear about it the day we find it
Whatever is behind the lining gets shown to you and priced before it is covered over, not added to an invoice at the end.
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The membrane gets its full cure
Nothing is tiled over waterproofing that has not gone off, even when it costs us days on site. It is the one wait that cannot be bought back later.
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We will tell you not to do it
If a shower can be repaired rather than rebuilt, or the room is not worth the money you are about to spend, you will hear that instead of a quote.
The questions we get most
How long will I be without a bathroom?
For a full renovation the room is genuinely out of use from strip-out through to fit-off, not just inconvenient. Most of the timeline is set by the trade sequence and by two unavoidable waits, the screed setting and the waterproofing membrane curing, rather than by how many people are on site. If it is your only bathroom, tell us at the quoting stage and we will look at whether the sequence can be staged to restore a working toilet earlier.
Can you move the shower and toilet, or do they have to stay where they are?
It depends on your floor. In a highset timber house the drainage is reachable from the subfloor, so moving a fixture is far more affordable than most people assume. On a concrete slab it means cutting and reinstating concrete, which is a real cost and sometimes not worth it in a room whose layout is already sensible. We will tell you which of the two you have before you commit to a new layout.
Do you handle the plumbing and electrical, or do I organise those separately?
We run the whole sequence under one point of contact: strip-out, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, tiling and fit-off, in the order they have to happen. You are not chasing separate trades or trying to work out why the tiler is waiting on somebody who has not returned a call.
What happens if you find something behind the wall?
You hear about it the day we find it, with what it means and what it costs, before anything is covered over. Our quotes name the things most likely to be behind a wall in a house of your type and age, so if one of them appears you are not hearing the number for the first time. Rot in a bottom plate, a subfloor that has been wet for years and pipework at the end of its life are the usual three.
Do I get a waterproofing certificate at the end?
Yes, and it is worth keeping with the house papers. It records what was applied, where and by whom. It is the document a purchaser's inspector, an insurer or a body corporate will ask for, and in a unit it can decide whether a claim is entertained at all.
Why will you not give me a price over the phone?
Because any number given without seeing the room would have a variation built into it. What decides the cost is whether fixtures move, what the floor is, what is behind the wall and which fixtures you want, and none of that is visible from a description. We will come and look, then put a written scope in front of you that says what is included and what happens if something turns up on strip-out.
How much mess does it make in the rest of the house?
Demolition is the messy phase and it is concentrated in the first days rather than spread across the job. Containment goes up at the doorway and protection goes down along the access route, which makes a substantial difference, though a bathroom strip-out in an occupied house is never a completely clean process. If the bathroom is reached through a bedroom, as most ensuites are, we plan the access before we start rather than carrying a strip-out past a wardrobe.
The finish you see is set by work you never will
Under every tiled floor there is a bed, a fall and a membrane, and by handover all three have vanished. What stays visible for fifteen years is whether they were done with care: joints that line through, edges that meet the wall cleanly, a floor that sheds water instead of holding it.
- Set out from the room's sightlines, not from a corner
- Falls proven before a single tile is fixed
- Clip-levelled beds, so no edge stands proud underfoot
Why a bathroom ages faster up here
A bathroom in Cairns is asked to do something a bathroom in Melbourne is not. The room starts humid and stays humid, the air outside offers no relief for months at a time, and surfaces that would dry out overnight further south simply do not. Everything in a wet area that has a service life gets to the end of it sooner: silicone, grout, the cheap chrome on a shower screen roller, the exhaust fan that was undersized on the day it was fitted.
That is why so many renovations up here start with a leak rather than with a mood board. The homeowner has been looking at the same tiles for fifteen years without minding them much, and then a skirting board in the next room swells, or a patch of paint lifts on the other side of the shower wall, and suddenly the room has to be dealt with now.
What is actually behind the wall
Cairns housing stock varies more than most people expect, and the variation matters the moment the tiles come off. A highset timber house in Edge Hill or Whitfield has its plumbing accessible from underneath, which makes moving a fixture far cheaper than it sounds. A nineties brick and tile place in Smithfield or Redlynch usually has a slab, which makes moving that same fixture a different conversation entirely. A unit at Trinity Beach or Palm Cove has a body corporate, common property, and a stack shared with somebody else’s bathroom.
None of that shows up in a photo, and none of it can be honestly priced without somebody standing in the room. It is also why a fixed quote from a renovator who has not seen the space is not really a fixed quote. It is a number with a variation waiting behind it.
The part nobody sees
If there is one thing worth understanding before you spend money on a bathroom, it is that the finish and the waterproofing are two entirely separate purchases that happen to arrive in the same room. The tiles, the tapware and the vanity are what you chose. The membrane underneath is what decides whether you are doing this again in eight years.
It is invisible by the time the job is finished, it is the easiest place for a renovation to save a few hundred dollars, and it is the only failure in a bathroom that takes the floor, the wall frame and the room next door with it. Ours goes on to the Australian Standard, gets checked before tiling, and leaves you holding the certificate.
Call 0468 047 067 if you would rather talk it through, or send the form and describe the room. What comes back is a plain assessment of what the bathroom needs, and whether spending the money on it makes sense at all.
If you are still working out what the job involves, the questions worth reading first are what actually drives the cost and how long the work really takes. Both sit in the planning section with the rest of it.
Cairns, the beaches and the southern corridor
North to Palm Cove, south to Edmonton, and the older suburbs in between where the housing stock decides half the job.
- Edge Hill Older highset timber homes, small original wet areas, and plumbing you can actually get to from underneath.
- Edmonton The southern corridor, where a good share of the work is investment stock and the scope has to hold to a number.
- Manunda Post-war homes with a tiny bathroom and a separate toilet, where taking one wall out changes everything.
- Smithfield Brick and tile family homes where the main bathroom and the ensuite reach the end of their life together.
- Palm Cove Apartments and holiday lets, renovated inside a booking window and to the building's hours rather than ours.
- Redlynch Estate homes now old enough that the original wet areas, and the fans that were meant to dry them, are both due.
- Whitfield Hillside blocks and split levels, where access and where the waste can run decide what the room can be.
- Trinity Beach Duplexes and low-rise blocks where the approvals matter, and houses close enough to the water that the hardware pays for it.
Get a written quote
Give us the room's rough size, what is in it now and what you want changed. A photo of the bathroom as it stands answers most of the rest.
- On site
- Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm
- Covering
- Cairns, the northern beaches to Palm Cove, south to Edmonton
- Quotes
- Measured in the room, given in writing, no obligation
- We look at the room before anyone talks about money, because a bathroom cannot be priced from a photograph
- The quote is itemised: what comes out, what goes back, and which fixtures sit at which tier
- You are left holding a written scope you can put beside somebody else's and actually compare