Dear Oz-Bargainers ,
We are thinking of DIY our own bathroom and remove our old carpet to flooring. Any suggestions of tiles, flooring , lights and bathroom warehouse that we can buy something good within acceptable price.
We live in South Eastern Suburbs Melbourne .
Also looking to hear some of experiences/skills from Oz-bargainers that already do some renovations recently.
Thank you all !
Well done, mate. I was thinking to do reno too, but not handy at all.
It did involved a lot of hard work and research. You can do it! Start small and break down the tasks that needed to be done. Otherwise, you get overwhelmed and just want to get it over and done with. At that stage, your work will get sloppy and you might hurt yourself too.
Most of the things I learnt how to do from Youtube. Lol. Also, I spent a lot of time in Bunnings. The guys there have lots of experience. Masters seems to have only retail staff, not a good place to go if you need advice.
My reno is not finished. I want to work on the outside now. I am going to build a deck with the help my builder friend though. It's a ground level deck, so no risk of the family falling to their deaths if I didn't build it properly, but still good to build it properly.
Also, I have a collection of power tools now. I got the Ozito ones from Bunnings. I know some people look down on Ozito, but mine works fine and because I haven't owned any other brands, I don't know any better. :)
Thanks for the support. I will try.
Thanks Geek001 for your advices . We are thinking to remove all the carpet this weekend.
You can do it. I always admire handy people. I am a bit hopeless, saved money on ozbargain, but spent it on tradie for simple jobs.
Forgot to say something very very IMPORTANT!, if you are going to attempt DIY, please please please invest in safety gear. I would probably be blind in one eye now, if it wasn't for my safety glasses. I can't even remember how many times I have been scratched on my arms and legs. Luckily none were from rusty things. I had leather gloves, rubber gloves, safety glasses, masks(get good ones!), work boots.
If your house is an older house. I would not touch the walls, just in case there is asbestos in there. Asbestos removal can be very costly, but please do not attempt it yourself.
We did our reno this year. Pretty lucky we have had a few deals come up while we were doing it, Ikea 20% off kitchen, 20% Masters sales, etc. Sometimes it is good to stretch things out. Lol.
We replaced our carpet, got it from Masters. Confirm the quote from masters, use 5% off in-store voucher at the checkout. Saved me extra $100. This was at the start of the year before they started discounting 10% or 20% though, you might have better luck. We saved some money by pulling up the old carpet ourselves. If you want to paint the walls, I would suggest you pull out the carpet, then paint the skirting. Once the carpet goes in, you won't be able to paint the skirting without getting paint on your new carpet.
For bathroom, we didn't change it much, because we were worried we might disturb the waterproofing. I added some tiles onto the walls, change the toilet suite, change the tap fittings to 1/4 turn fittings so that it is easier for the kids.
I also redid the master walk-in wardrobe to use the space better using ikea bits.
Downstairs, we replaced the old tiles and carpet with glossy 600mm tiles. The downside to that is the glossy tiles attract footprint marks and the wife have to mop the floor every few days now.
Pretty proud of myself actually. I have never been known to be handy and have never done any reno work before.