It doesn’t matter whether you’re preparing to sell, have just bought a new home, or been living in your home for a while – there’s never a wrong time to upgrade a deteriorating bathroom.
A great-looking bathroom will add value and enjoyment to your home, but the job must be done properly or it will cause more problems than it solves. Bathrooms must be thoroughly sealed to prevent leaks that can undermine the surrounding timber structure and cause major headaches down the track.
Like any other area of your home, you shouldn’t leave problems with a bathroom, unattended for too long. Crumbling grout in the shower, mould around the shower screen and vanities with wood bloated from water damage all point towards the need for an upgrade.
But renovating a bathroom is not a small or inexpensive task, and many owners are tempted to put off the project until you have no choice but to act.
Here’s six reasons when you need to get serious about a bathroom renovation.
- From another decade – Nothing dates a bathroom like colour. You can tell if it was built in the 70s and 80s merely by the colour scheme. Most bathrooms today are based on white, rather than old school creams or browns. If your bathroom can remember when David Cassidy was making hits, then the time to act is overdue.
- Cracking under the strain – Grout gives up all the bathroom’s secrets. If it’s stained, flaky or broken away, then you may have more significant issues ahead of you. When it comes to a bathroom, little problems ignored always lead to bigger ones.
- Trail of clues – Small problems leave a trail of clues that should tell you that an upgrade is needed. These include mould, smelly or blocked toilets and drains, insufficient water pressure and dripping taps and showerhead.
- Awkward layout – It’s only been in the past few decades that buyers have placed emphasis on the quality of a bathroom. Before, you could get away with a sub-optimal layout. Not anymore. If the fixtures are positioned awkwardly, it’s time to rip everything out and start again. If you don’t, every other improvement will feel like a compromise.
- Poor lighting – This can be fixed inexpensively. But if you’re going to invest in an upgrade, install lighting that best matches the design and layout. Consider a solution that combines lights with heat lamps and a fan to extract steam and damp.
- Limited storage – This is a significant frustration point with many bathrooms. Poor storage creates annoying clutter. A good vanity, wall-mounted mirror cabinet and shelving solve the problem.