The rooms that work hardest
Project homes out here are generous with living areas and careful with wet areas. The result is a main bathroom of reasonable size and one or two smaller rooms — an ensuite, a second bathroom upstairs — that carry most of the daily load.
Those smaller rooms are usually the better renovation. They are used more, they were specified with less, and because they are small the cost of transforming them is lower.
The corner shower is the problem
Almost every Hills bathroom of this era has one: an aluminium-framed screen, a pivot door, and a moulded shower base sitting proud of the floor.
It is the single most dating element in the room and the single best thing to change.
Replacing it with a fixed glass panel and tiling the floor continuously into the shower removes three things at once — the frame, the door arc, and the step. In a room under five square metres that is not a cosmetic improvement, it is a functional one. The room reads as one space rather than a box inside a box.
In most cases it reuses the existing waste, which keeps it affordable. What it does require is the fall being set out properly across a wider wet area, which is tiling work rather than plumbing work.
Three more changes that need no plumbing
Full-height tiling. The two-metre tile line with paint above is more noticeable in a small room because the walls are closer. Tiling to the ceiling removes it and removes the junction that marks over time.
A slimline wall-hung vanity. Going from a 550mm builder-grade unit to a 460mm wall-hung one with drawers returns floor you can feel, makes cleaning trivial, and removes the kickboard where water sits. See vanities and cabinetry.
Light at the mirror. A single ceiling downlight behind you is the standard project-home fit-out and it is the wrong place for light in a room where people shave and put on makeup. It needs a cable at rough-in, so decide early.
Why enlarging rarely pays on a slab
The question comes up on most small-room jobs: can we take a metre from the robe?
Physically, usually yes. Financially, rarely worth it. Moving a wall in a slab-on-ground house means relocating at least one waste, which means cutting concrete. That brings a jackhammer stage, dust through the house, extra curing and real money — for a room that will still be a small bathroom afterwards.
A well-executed 2.5 square metre room feels considerably better than a poorly executed 3.5 square metre one. The budget returns more in the fit-out.
Ventilation, which project builders under-spec
Builder-grade extractor fans are frequently undersized for the room and occasionally vent into the roof cavity rather than outside.
In a small enclosed wet area that is the difference between a room that dries between uses and a room that develops a smell and eventually a mould problem. Upgrading the fan and confirming it is ducted properly to outside is cheap, unglamorous, and one of the higher-value items on the list.
Put it on a run-on timer so it keeps running after the light goes off.
What twenty years of use does
Nothing structural. The waterproofing was done to a modern standard and it has worked, which is why nothing is rotting.
What wears is grout, silicone, tapware cartridges and chipboard vanity bases. If only one of those is failing, fix the one. If three are, a full renovation is the better value — and the cost page sets out what that runs.
Upstairs bathrooms and the floor underneath
A meaningful share of Hills houses are two-storey, and the second bathroom is upstairs on a timber floor rather than the ground-floor slab.
That changes two things in your favour. Drainage has somewhere to run, so a layout change upstairs is far cheaper than the same change downstairs. And the floor build-up for falls is easier to achieve without creating a step at the door.
It also changes one thing against you. A failure upstairs goes into the ceiling below rather than into the ground, which makes the waterproofing stage more consequential, not less. Get the documentation and keep it.
If you are choosing which room to renovate first and one is upstairs, the upstairs room is usually where the design options are.
Scope
Same sequence as a full renovation, sized to the room: strip-out, rough-in, screed and falls, waterproofing, tiling and fit-off.
Call 02 5944 1412 or send a photo and rough dimensions.
The rest of what we do
Questions people ask before they commit
What counts as a small bathroom here?
Under about five square metres, which describes most ensuites and second bathrooms in Hills project homes. The main bathroom is often larger, but the room getting the most daily use is frequently the smallest one in the house.
How much does a small bathroom renovation cost?
About $16,000 to $26,000 as a 2026 planning guide for a room kept in its existing layout. Small rooms save on tiles and materials but not on trade attendance, so the saving against a main bathroom is smaller than the floor area implies.
Can I make it bigger?
Sometimes, by borrowing from a robe or a hallway. It means moving a wall and almost certainly relocating a waste on a slab, which brings a jackhammer, extra program and real cost. Unless the room is genuinely unusable, the money returns more when spent on the fit-out.
What is the single biggest improvement?
Replacing a framed corner shower with a fixed panel and running the floor tile continuously into the shower. It removes the base lip, the frame and the visual break, and in a room under five square metres that changes everything about how it reads.
Do large tiles work in a small room?
Usually, because fewer grout lines read as less clutter. The limit is set-out — a large format in a very small room can leave slivers at the perimeter. Ask the tiler where the cuts will land before work starts.