Hobart Bathroom Renovations Blog
Walked into a place in New Town not long ago, brick veneer, built somewhere around 1972, and the laundry was barely wide enough to open the washing machine door without your elbow hitting the wall behind you. The owner stood in the doorway and said "I don't think there's anything you can actually do with this, is there?"
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If you own an older home in Glenorchy or Montrose, you may be thinking about replacing the original bathroom. Before anything comes off the wall, it helps to know what could be sitting behind the tiles.
You own an older home close to the city. The bathroom is tired, and you're ready for a new one. Then a question stops you: does "heritage" mean you need permission first?
Walked into a place in New Town not long ago, brick veneer, built somewhere around 1972, and the laundry was barely wide enough to open the washing machine door without your elbow hitting the wall behind you. The owner stood in the doorway and said "I don't think there's anything you can actually do with this, is there?"
Had a call from a fellow in South Hobart a few months back, three weeks out from his laundry reno starting, ready to go. Then he mentioned, almost in passing, that he wanted to shift the trough about half a metre to make room for a bigger cabinet. That one throwaway line turned a straightforward job into one that needed a plumbing permit before a single tile could be laid.
We got called out to a place in Lenah Valley a while back, weatherboard cottage, laundry "renovated" about eight years earlier by the previous owner. New cabinets, new tap, looked the business. Problem was, when we pulled the vinyl up to fix a soft spot near the trough, there was no membrane under there at all.
Had a bloke call us last week, dead worried he couldn’t afford to fix his laundry. Machine was on bricks because the floor had gone soft underneath it, tap was dripping into a bucket for about six months, and he’d basically written the whole room off as “one day when we win the lotto.”
We had a job in West Hobart a few months back, lovely old weatherboard cottage from the 1960s, and the owners just wanted their tired old laundry ripped out and made functional again. Nothing fancy. Then our crew pulled back the old vinyl flooring and there it was, that unmistakable grey sheeting underneath.
Sandy Bay. A house built in 1975, ensuite tucked in behind the main bedroom like it was an afterthought — because it probably was. Owner walks in, tries to shut the door without hitting the vanity, and just laughs. That’s most ensuites in Hobart’s older homes.
You know that feeling when you walk into a beautiful old Hobart home, all high ceilings and character, and then you get to the ensuite and it’s stuck somewhere back in 1975? Cracked tiles, a shower that barely fits a grown adult, maybe even a bit of mould creeping in the corner.
Emma from Lenah Valley rang us in a right panic last winter. Her ensuite ceiling had gone black in the corner near the shower, and no matter how much bleach she scrubbed on it, the stuff kept coming back within a fortnight.
You’re standing in your ensuite right now, aren’t you. Staring at that cracked tile behind the toilet that’s been “on the list” since 2019, doing the math in your head and getting nowhere close to an answer. Maybe you’ve already typed “ensuite renovation cost Hobart” into Google three times this week.
Had a couple in Glenorchy tell us they’d been quoted $40,000 for their bathroom by another mob and just about fell over. Their place was a standard three-bedroom brick home from the 1970s, one bathroom, nothing flashy needed, they just wanted it to stop looking like 1978.
Most people ringing us for the first time have no idea what actually happens between saying “yes, let’s do it” and having a finished bathroom. They’ve seen renovation shows where a whole bathroom gets done in a weekend and figure that’s roughly how it works. It isn’t.
Weighing up whether a walk-in shower is worth the switch for your Hobart bathroom? Here's what actually changes day to day, and where the cost goes.
Ready when you are
Call, email, or reach out online and we'll get back to you about your renovation.