Cheap bathroom facelift options…

flogen

I recently moved into a new place and the bathroom needs an overhaul.

My plan is to do a full renovation next year, but I want to do what I can to make it tolerable in the mean time.

A large part of that is deciding what to put on the floor… after I lifted the carpet (🤢) it was just bare floorboards, not in great Nick. I’m wondering if cheap laminate planks or vinyl adhesive tiles is the best option (also not sure if the latter can be stuck straight on wood?).

Other choice to make is to use vinyl tiles to cover the wall tiles - or just use tile paint. Main concern is whether either will hold up in the shower area (bearing in mind it should only need to last 6 months or so).

Has anyone had experience using any of these in a bathroom? All things being equal I’ll go the cheapest route - but don’t want to waste even a small amount of money on something that’s not going to work.

listermint

Cheapest short term would be some lino. Tiles are quite cheap but you'd have to know what you're doing.

Equally could simply paint the floor or sand and varnish it depending on condition and use a bath mat for shower area. That's about 40 euro worth of effort.

yellowlabrador

I 'papered' my floor. You can find instructions on YouTube. It involves Scrunching up brown paper pieces. Sticking them down with PVA and then covering with a few layers of varnish. It gives a leather effect .

wandererz

Have you looked at bathroom wall panels?

For the floor, I would look at a cheap laminate.

flogen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121216202#Comment_121216202

I'm actually surprised at how close in price lino is to laminate - I'll have to check out a few more places and see if I can find a better price.

In terms of tile, do you mean ceramic? I wouldn't mind giving that a go but I don't think I want to put that effort into something that's going to get ripped up in a few months.

Painting or sanding the floor probably isn't an option as the floorboards aren't in great shape - looks like they were cut and lifted more than once to get access to piping etc. so they're fairly gappy.

flogen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121216702#Comment_121216702

I'd never heard of or seen that before... looks interesting. Cheers!

flogen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121216721#Comment_121216721

Must have a look - thanks

20/20

Lino would be your best option, and cheapest. I am a tiler and to put ceramic tiles on floorboards the boards will have to be sheeted with a magnesium board first. That could cost over €50 plus adhesive and grout another €50 plus then the cost of tiles. The laminate may not be to easy to cut neatly around the toilet bowl and pedestal. But lino should be quiet easy to lay as all you need is a sharp knife.

Faith

We used peel and stick floor tiles in our bathroom (new build but the developers put manky tiles down that we hated). We used plenty of extra spray adhesive and they're working well. Cost about €100 for a decent sized main bathroom, so definitely a cheap option that will last at least a year or two.