A bathroom reno,
week by week:
the honest timeline
Day one is dust and noise. Week four is waterproofing nobody will ever see. Here's the real week-by-week of a Fremantle bathroom renovation — including the quiet week where it looks like nothing happens.
Week 1: strip and discover
Demo day is loud, dusty and quick — two to three days and the room is back to bare slab. This is also discovery week: water damage around the old shower, a cracked riser, the previous owner's creative plumbing. About one job in three surfaces a surprise; we photograph it, price the fix in writing, and get your sign-off before touching it.
Meanwhile the plumber and sparkie rough in: new in-wall pipes, mixer bodies, the fan circuit, heated rail prewires if you're having them. Everything gets pressure-tested and photographed before the walls close — the photos land in your job folder.
Week 2: screed and falls
The least photogenic week and the one that decides whether your shower drains or ponds. Fresh screed goes down graded to the waste — we verify falls with a level and a bucket of water, because a slope that looks right isn't always right.
Cure time is the schedule's anchor: screed needs days to dry before membrane can go over it. Rushing this is the first way bathrooms fail in year three.
Week 3–4: the quiet waterproofing fortnight
Two coats of membrane, cross-applied, bandage at every junction and upturn, to AS 3740. Then the flood test: the room fills with water and sits for 48 hours while we watch the level for drops and the neighbours' ceiling for stains.
To a client it looks like nothing happens for a week. It's actually the highest-stakes week of the job — every dollar spent on pretty tiles rides on this membrane. Our bathroom scope documents the whole process with photos and a certificate, because hidden work is exactly where evidence matters.
Week 5: tiles
The visible week at last. Large-format porcelain goes up with levelling systems and suction frames, setout agreed in pencil on the wall first. Mitred edges where the spec calls for them, epoxy grout in the shower zone because cement grout re-stains within two years.
Detail stuff happens here — niche positions, tile-to-floor junctions, silicone colour-matched at every junction. This is the difference between tiled and tiled-well.
Week 6–7: fit-off, test, handover
Vanity, WC, brassware, screen, mirror, fan — all fitted, sealed and tested. Then the boring-important bit: we run every fixture, re-verify drainage, adjust doors, and do the handover walkthrough with you pointing at anything that bothers you.
You get the waterproofing certificate, care instructions for the grout and brassware, and our warranty in writing. Then the best part: your first shower in a room where water only goes where it's supposed to.
Four to seven weeks of us, ten years of dry.
If your bathroom's due, book the measure — we check falls, risers and strata rules before quoting a cent.
