The room that gets the most use
Project homes out here almost always have an ensuite off the main bedroom, and in most households it carries more traffic than the main bathroom by a wide margin.
It is also, usually, the room the builder spent least on. A compact shower, a mirror over a builder-grade vanity, tiles to two metres, one downlight, and an extractor fan chosen for cost.
That combination — highest use, lowest original spend — makes the ensuite the single best-value renovation in most Hills houses.
What changes without moving a pipe
Full-height tiling. In a small room the two-metre tile line is even more noticeable than in a main bathroom, because the walls are closer.
The shower. Swapping a framed corner screen for a fixed panel, and tiling the floor continuously into the shower, removes the base lip and the frame in one move. In a 2.5 square metre room, that is the difference between cramped and calm.
The vanity. Slimline, wall-hung, drawers instead of doors. In a narrow ensuite, going from 550mm depth to 460mm returns floor you can actually feel.
Light at the mirror. Needs a cable, so it is a rough-in decision. In the room where you shave or put on makeup at 6am, it is the upgrade people mention most afterwards.
The extractor. Builder-grade fans are frequently undersized and sometimes vent into the roof cavity rather than outside. In an enclosed ensuite that is the difference between a room that dries and a room that does not.
The powder room
The most overlooked room in a Hills house, and the cheapest to change completely. No shower means no waterproofing complexity, a small floor area means little tile, and the whole thing can be transformed with a new vanity, tapware, mirror, light and full-height tiling.
It also carries disproportionate weight with visitors, since it is often the only part of the house guests use alone. For a fraction of a bathroom budget it is an easy decision.
Small-room design, three decisions
The door. A hinged door consumes roughly 800mm of arc. In a 1.6m-wide ensuite that is most of the usable floor. A cavity slider costs more and needs wall depth, but frequently buys back the only space there is.
The shower entry. A fixed panel with a walk-in entry removes the second arc and opens the room visually. Splash control comes down to the fall and the panel position being set out properly.
The basin. A wall-hung basin or a slimline vanity. The 100mm you return is worth more than the drawer capacity you lose.
Why enlarging rarely pays
People frequently ask about taking space from the robe or the bedroom. It is possible. It means moving a wall and, in a slab-on-ground house, relocating at least one waste — which brings a jackhammer, extra program and real cost.
Unless the existing room is genuinely unusable, the money returns more when spent on the fit-out of the room you already have. That is not a counsel of despair; a well-executed 2.5 square metre ensuite feels considerably better than a badly executed 3.5 square metre one.
Sequencing two rooms in one house
Most Hills houses have a main bathroom, an ensuite and a powder room. Doing all three at once is the cheapest per room and the most disruptive.
The arrangement that works best in practice is to run the ensuite and the powder room together, and the main bathroom separately — or the reverse, depending on which pair leaves the household a usable shower throughout.
What you want to avoid is losing every shower in the house simultaneously to save a few hundred dollars on mobilisation. The saving is real but it is smaller than a fortnight of showering somewhere else.
Talk this through at the measure. A contractor who has done this in a Hills house before will have an opinion about which order suits your specific layout, and it costs nothing to plan properly.
What it costs to run them together
Trade attendance, the skip, the waterproofer's set-up and the tile delivery are largely fixed. Adding a second small room to an existing program typically costs meaningfully less than that room would standalone, and a third less again.
The cost page sets out the bands. The short version: if two rooms are due within a couple of years of each other, doing them together is almost always the better financial decision.
Where it sits
Same scope as a full bathroom renovation compressed into a smaller room — strip-out, rough-in, screed, waterproofing, tiling and fit-off.
Call 02 5944 1412 or send the details through.
The rest of what we do
Questions people ask before they commit
How much does an ensuite renovation cost in Kellyville?
About $16,000 to $28,000 as a 2026 planning guide, and a powder room $8,000 to $15,000. Ensuites cost less than main bathrooms because there is less area to tile, but the per-square-metre rate is higher — small rooms concentrate fiddly work without shrinking the trade call-outs.
Should I do the ensuite or the main bathroom first?
Whichever gets used more, which in most Hills households is the ensuite. If the budget only covers one, renovating the room you stand in every morning returns more than renovating the one guests see twice a year.
Can the ensuite be enlarged?
Occasionally, by taking space from a robe or the bedroom. It means moving a wall and, in most project homes, relocating at least one waste on a slab. The cost usually outweighs the benefit unless the existing room is genuinely unusable.
What about the powder room?
Often the most neglected room in a Hills house and the cheapest to transform. It is small, it has no shower, and a new vanity, tapware, mirror, light and full-height tiling will change it completely for a fraction of a bathroom budget.
Can both be done at once?
Yes, and it is meaningfully cheaper per room. If the main bathroom is also being done, adding both smaller rooms to the same program is the best-value version of the job — provided you are comfortable losing more than one at a time.