Full Bathroom Renovations
The whole room taken back to the frame and rebuilt, with one contact running every trade in sequence.
- One contact for every trade, in the right order
- Written scope agreed before anything is removed
- Waterproofing certified and the certificate handed over
- What we find behind the wall is priced before it is covered
A full renovation means the room comes back to its frame. Fixtures, cabinetry, wall linings and floor covering all go, the plumbing and electrical are reworked to suit the new layout, the space is waterproofed from scratch, and everything that goes back in is new. It is the right answer when the bathroom is at the end of its life rather than merely dated, and it is the only approach that lets the layout change.
When the whole room is the honest answer
Some bathrooms only need a cosmetic pass. Plenty do not, and the difference is usually visible before anything is opened up.
If the tiles sound hollow when you tap them, if the silicone has been redone more than once, if there is movement in the floor near the shower, or if paint keeps lifting on the far side of a wet wall, the problem is behind the surface and no amount of new tapware will reach it. The same goes for a room where the layout itself is the complaint. Moving a shower or a toilet is a plumbing job, not a decorating one, and it cannot be done without taking the room apart.
The other honest trigger is age. A bathroom built before waterproofing membranes were required at all is not a bathroom with an old-fashioned look. It is a bathroom with nothing under the tiles.
What the sequence actually is
The order is fixed, and most of the timeline is set by it rather than by how many people are on site. Strip-out, then inspection of what is revealed, then plumbing and electrical rough-in, then screeding and falls, then the waterproofing membrane and its cure, then tiling, then grouting, then fit-off of tapware, screen, vanity, mirror and door furniture, then handover with the paperwork.
Two of those steps are where corners get cut. Falls are the first: a floor that does not run to the waste will pond no matter how good the tiling looks. The membrane cure is the second, and it is the one that costs money to respect, because the site sits idle while it goes off. Tiling onto an uncured membrane is invisible on handover day and expensive in year two.
The part of the quote that has to be honest
Nobody can see through a wall. In Cairns the things that turn up on strip-out are reasonably predictable by house type: rot in the bottom plate of a timber-framed wall, a shower base that has been leaking quietly into a subfloor, galvanised pipework at the end of its life, or a previous renovation where somebody tiled straight over the old floor rather than lifting it.
We quote the job we can see, list the things most likely to be behind it, and tell you the day we find something rather than at the end. What we will not do is give you a number over the phone that has a variation built into it on purpose.
If the room is at that point, call 0468 047 067 or send the form with a photo and rough dimensions, and we will tell you whether a full renovation is what it actually needs.
Suburbs we cover for this work
- 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.
Questions about full bathroom renovations
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.
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.
Get it measured and quoted
Give us the room, roughly what is in it now and what you want changed. We will come and measure it before anyone talks about a price.
- 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