Hurstville Main Bathroom

The brief

A double-brick 1970s house in Hurstville with a bathroom 3.6m long and barely 2m wide, broken up by a bath across the far end and a vanity that stuck out into the walkway. The owners had assumed the only fix was to steal space from the adjoining bedroom.

What we found

It didn't need to. The bath at the end was doing nothing except making the room feel like a corridor with a dead end, and the family used the ensuite bath anyway. Behind the wall we found the original galvanised supply lines still in service and heavily corroded — replaced while the wall was open, which is a fraction of what it costs later. The slab was sound and the falls could be re-formed within the existing screed depth.

What we did

The bath came out and the whole far end became a walk-in shower behind reeded glass, which keeps the light moving down the room instead of stopping it. One continuous timber vanity runs the length of the opposite wall with a stone top and an integrated trough basin, under a backlit oval mirror. Warm stone tiling floor to ceiling, brushed gold tapware, and a recessed shelf the full width of the shower.

The outcome

Twenty days on site. Final contract $38,500 including GST, including $2,300 for replacing the corroded supply lines — found, photographed and signed off on day three.