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(photo credit)
A grott
y old bathroom can be very unpleasant to use and if you have guests to stay, it might make them think twice about coming back. Of course, you’d love to have a whole new bathroom fitted but your financial position says otherwise. Remodelling an entire bathroom is expensive business and most people simply cannot afford to do it can they? Well, that isn’t strictly true. You probably can afford to remodel your bathroom, it’ll just take a bit of creative thinking in certain areas to make sure that you cut costs.
Tiling
Most people prefer tiles in their bathroom but they come at a price. Buying the tiles and then hiring somebody to fit them all for you is going to be expensive. It’s much better to buy fewer tiles and focus on a few key areas. Try just tiling the floor and the shower, or tiling one strip around the wall and painting the rest. The savings will be huge. If you want to make even bigger savings, you could do the tiling yourself instead of paying for somebody to do it for you.
Paint
If you can part with tiles completely, it will help a lot. Painting the entire room will be far cheaper than tiling it. It’s also much easier for you to do yourself. When you are choosing paints, look into mold resistant brands. That way the paint will be more robust and it will last a lot longer before you need to paint it again.
Update Fixtures
Chances are, you won’t be able to afford to replace the bath, shower or toilet with brand new ones but changing some of the smaller details can still give the bathroom a new look. There is a huge range of bath taps to suit any bath available online; replacing your taps with a brand new set will go a long way to freshening up the look of your bathroom. You could also replace radiators and towel rails with something a bit more stylish and up to date. It won’t cost you as much but it
will improve your dated bathroom. When you are choosing new fixtures, consider whether they are energy efficient or not, by spending a little more now, you could make long- term savings on the household budget.
Relining
Buying a brand new bath or shower is going to set you back a lot and most of the time you don’t need to do it in the first place. The reason that they start to look tatty is not the fixtures themselves, it is because the sealant around the edges is starting to come away. Having somebody professionally reline them will be quite cheap, especially compared to buying and fitting a whole new bathroom suite.
Buy Used
If you are dead set on replacing your bath or shower, don’t go for brand new ones. You can easily get second-hand ones that will be in just as good condition for a fraction of the price. Look on sites like Ebay or Craigsl
ist to see
what you can find. You should also try Etsy for upcycled bathroom fixtures. People are very inventive with what they do on there and you could find a unique bath without having to pay a lot for it.
