Bathroom & Kitchen Renovation

[ThomasMum]

We are planning to renovate our other place around May this year (it's located in North Sydney area). Does anyone know any good-respectable independent companies around Sydney? We went to visit the Renovation Showrooms in Alexandria on the weekend just for an idea or two. What a pity that IKEA doesn’t do any “corner” cabinets! They are by far the cheapest!
Do you think we can renovate bathroom and kitchen under $20K, or am I dreaming lol?
Any ideas?

Many thanks :)

TM

[lukaelmo]

Oooo Thomas's mum, the only thing I know about renovation is from cable tv at my parents'!

But I am very excited for you, how wonderful to have a brand new kitchen and bathroom...

Good luck!

[ThomasMum]

LOL lukaelmo, which shows? Changing Room? Or Dr Phil's son show?

Thanks, the place is for rent thats why we dont want to spend too much on it lol, but hey we are an EXCELLENT land lord! :D

TM

[Mamaduke]

The only thing I can add after renovating our kitchen and bathroom is shop around! I had quotes on my kitchen which ranged from $4700 to $20000, there is such a vast difference in the prices companies quote. We ended up going with a local tradesman for our bathroom after we were quoted prices in the range of $4000 to $15000. The guy we chose was always on time, did a wonderful job and the contractors he used always turned up at the time/day that they said they would. Another tip is to shop around for fittings/fixtures. I shopped around and never paid recommended retail for anything! Use cash as a bargaining tool and be prepared to walk away if they don't give you the price you want. I stood for 20 minutes in a tile shop bargaining tiles down from $35.00 sqm to $20 cash including delivery - if you do this at every place it all adds up! For appliances/whitegoods, offer to take floorstock at a reduced price. There is nothing wrong with them (floorstock) and you'll find they'll be heavily reduced.
Good luck, I know when I started shopping around I found it all very time consuming but after getting a few things cheaper, I made it my mission in life to never pay full price for anything!!!:p
BTW Our kitchen and bathroom came in at $10000.

[redbaby]

Hi thomasMum,...

We are also just about to launch into renovating (though we are gutting our entire house and starting again - great thing to do with a toddler, and also being pregnant!),.......so we have to move out for 6 weeks!! Arrghhh,..thank God for the Palm Beach place,.. Anyway,.... if it is an investment property, then I know that Freedom do kitchens,..and you can get away with it for about $10K I am not sure whether they do bathrooms aswell,.but you can ask,. they send around a designer to draw up etc,....and the service seems pretty good,... Hope that helps,.!

[ThomasMum]

Thanks carlyb,
never pay full price for anything!!! sounds like my DH! He he

Thanks also Jane for the Freedom's idea. At the moment, Harvey Norman is going to send their designer to measure etc, we might go to Freedom also.

Good luck with the renovation, Jane sounds like you guys are going to have fun! Palm Beach sounds splendid to me! :D

TM

[sugar n spice]

Well at our previous house we renovated the bathroom for about $1500 - $2000 though we kept our vanity as that was near new. We retiled over the floor so saved us $ on having to have it ripped up. We bought tiles, new fixtures, had a plumber repair a leak in basin and we got 3 quotes from tilers. Beware that you should allow for the unexpected as this happened with us. The tiler was removing tiles off the shower wall and around the bath and realised it was mouldy underneathe so we needed new walls in that area (villa board) and then have it tiled. added an extra day and cost of materials though we didn't need to pay for that extra day as he had already quoted us. i haven't renovated a bathroom but a friend of mine completely redid her kitchen and that was a kit kitchen and it cost her $10 000.
hope this helps
rachel

[ThomasMum]

Beware that you should allow for the unexpected as this happened with us.
hope this helps
rachel

Thanks for that, Rachel! Ideally it would be great if we could spend nomore than 15K, which mean we will have an extra 5K-just incase we have "the unexpected" plan!

TM

[reAllytee]

Oh yes always plan for the unexpected because boy did we cop it with our place was sooo upsetting especially as we moved in when i was 7mths pg knowing things needed to be done but never knew we would have to gut the upstairs bathroom !!!!
Anyways we actually did our bathroom ourselves :D
My sisters fiance is a plumber so helped fix all leaks etc but we did tiling etc so all up we got ours done for $ 3000 !!!!
Shop around & make sure you bargain bargain bargain LOL !!!! I actually got my vanity at Bunnings LOL & cause it was the last one the guy gave it to me cheap he was all like i cant really do much for you as management is tight etc but how about $150 !!! I nearly fell over !!!! It was worth $300 !!!!! I just acted like well i suppose thats ok when i was jumping up & down inside hehehehe even he swapped the top due to it being chipped so as the handles were ruined i bought new ones & with a saving like that who cares !!!!!
Shop around for tiles as there are a lot of cheap tile places that if you can get what you want they often sell them for a quarter of a price !
We got all we wanted at Tilecraft they were fantastic & really good with giving things cheap we even got the tools for free :D

Are you sure about IKEA not doing corner cabinets im sure a friend of ours has a corner cabinet & he has an IKEA kitchen :confused: Weird !

Sometimes paying for a guy who runs his own business is cheaper than the likes of Harvey Norman we looked at their stuff waaaay too expensive for what it all was.
But yeah shop around & get as many quotes as you can handle heheh !
Good luck !

We get new windows in the next few weeks then we are installing our new floors hehehe renovating can be fun sometimes :p

[ThomasMum]

Are you sure about IKEA not doing corner cabinets im sure a friend of ours has a corner cabinet & he has an IKEA kitchen :confused: Weird !

Sometimes paying for a guy who runs his own business is cheaper than the likes of Harvey Norman we looked at their stuff waaaay too expensive for what it all was.
But yeah shop around & get as many quotes as you can handle heheh !
Good luck !

We get new windows in the next few weeks then we are installing our new floors hehehe renovating can be fun sometimes :p

Thanks for hints/tips allyoo. Yes IKEA what a pity, they dont know how to make funky corner kitchen cabinets :rolleyes: mind you tho they have a software for designing the house which we already DLed lol and its quite good, nvm and you are right abt hiring independent company is way cheaper than HNs for sure!

Good luck with the rest of the renovating allyoo!

Thanks kindly once again for the reply

TM :D

[redbaby]

Hey ThomasMum...... I am actually quite looking forward to Palmie,....although where the house is is only accessible by boat,..and that will be fun with a crazy toddler!!!! Oh well,.....! Small price to pay really!!!! Good luck with your reno,... also,..if you want to save money on appliances go out to Seconds World at Auburn,.. a bit of a hike,..but you can save a bunch of money,.. we got an Asko dishwasher for $900 instead of $2500,......

[ThomasMum]

Update on this one....we are still waiting..and waiting...I don't know how you people doing it, renovation is such a BORING game!
To make it harder currently we have our tenants living there, we don't really want to disturb them by going in and outs of the building sending designers to do some measurements etc...

Btw Jane&Scarlett, DH asked me to ask you how come Seconds World at Auburn sells such a not bad price? We are too lazy to drive all the way to Auburn at the moment lol, so we thought we'd ask you for more info. Because weve been doing some comparing price at the moment The Good Good Good Guys is the cheapest by far :confused:

Many thanks! :)

[redbaby]

Hi thomasmum,..

I know! Renovating is boring! As I am also an instant gratification kinda girl, (and also pregnant and volatile!) we have decided - as of Friday - to scrap our renos, and all our architects plans, and sell our house!!!!!! My poor husband,..I have no idea how he keeps sane with me in the house! All over the shop,..

Anyway,..... I came across a seconds world in Military Road in Cremorne,...opposite the McDonalds,.. It is quite small, but have a look there and see whether the staff can tell you if they have what you are looking for at Auburn,.....that;s what I did and then packed my lunch and passport and made the daytrip out to Auburn! Just to let you know,..I bought a Stainless Steel F&P Fridge there and got it for $600 less just cause the box (not the fridge) had a dent in it!

[ThomasMum]

Hi thomasmum,..

that;s what I did and then packed my lunch and passport and made the daytrip out to Auburn!

LOL you are funny jane! Now now we don't want to be in trouble do we for saying that Auburn is so far away :D

Thanks for the info, will pass on to DH! :)

[einalem]

Just wanted to pipe in with Ikea do have corner cupboards, but only for benches and top cupboards. They don't think make them in the long type cupboard. They don't look like corner cupboards though, they are long and skinny, with a door on one half and a flat panel on the other, where the other cupboards join up. If you have the software you'll see them there.

As an alternative to tiles you might find this product interesting http://www.liquidsurfacecreations.com.au/, I saw it on new inventors last season. I always wanted glass splashbacks in the kitchen and as the walls in the bathroom, as I HATE cleaning grout. But it is expensive. I am keeping this in mind when we build next year as an affordable option. It looks fantastic.

[ThomasMum]

Thanks for the info Melanie. Yes we do have the IKEA's software thats when we discovered that their corner cabinets arent good enoughe he he. We are still shopping around. So far we had 2 designers, one of them is from Harvey Norman, and if we go ahead with them its going to cost us $15K.

Tyvm once again :)

[quaver]

i hate to burst your bubble but as much as we tried i could not get a kitchen for under $14000. We were going to do both but we ran out of money for the bathroom. I suppose it depends on whether you are going to re use appliences, the size of the space and the quality you want. We wanted stone bench tops. We did it cheap everywhere else but this is where i wanted to spend the money. oh and taps- always get good taps. We did our own tilling and laid the floor to save money.
After only doing our kitchen last year we are moving and renovating another kitchen!! This one is costing more as it is bigger and includes a laundry too. We are knocking two walls down and putting in a new window which is costing $8000 alone! :eek:
two peices of advice.
do your research
allow a back up fund!
BTW if you do ikea- make sure you plan well and have a heap of time and patience!

[Renovi]

We found these guys at the last Home Ideas show in melbourne. Great range or cheap but quality stuff.

Check them out http://www.renovi.com.au

Hope this helps

Adam - Proud new dad

[daniel87]

Just wanted to pipe in with Ikea do have corner cupboards, but only for benches and top cupboards. They don't think make them in the long type cupboard. They don't look like corner cupboards though, they are long and skinny, with a door on one half and a flat panel on the other, where the other cupboards join up. If you have the software you'll see them there.

As an alternative to tiles you might find this product interesting http://www.liquidsurfacecreations.com.au/, I saw it on new inventors last season. I always wanted glass splashbacks (http://www.premierrange.co.uk/) in the kitchen and as the walls in the bathroom, as I HATE cleaning grout. But it is expensive. I am keeping this in mind when we build next year as an affordable option. It looks fantastic.

I didn't find out about splashbacks until recently but I now much prefer them over tiles for the reason you say, cleaning grout.