Iconic Renovations & Co has been renovating bathrooms in Baulkham Hills for the better part of two decades, and we’re a licensed, insured carpentry company rather than a showroom with a subcontractor list. Over 22 years in, we still handle each job as a one-off, because in this suburb they generally are.
Baulkham Hills was built out through the sixties and seventies, when the old orchards were carved into 700 to 900 square metre blocks and filled with four-bedroom brick-and-tile homes.
Plenty of those houses still have close to their original bathroom: a shower sitting over the bath, a coloured suite, small mosaic floor tiles and the toilet in its own room next door.Renovating one of those is a different job to renovating a newer bathroom, and the difference is mostly hidden behind the wall.
Our trades have been doing this long enough to know that the demolition sets up everything that follows. Take an old bathroom apart carefully and you find out what you’re dealing with – the condition of the framing, where the services actually run, whether the floor has dropped away from the waste.
From there it’s about getting the unglamorous things right. Falls that run properly to the waste. Framing packed straight before any sheeting goes up. Set-out worked backwards from the corners so you’re not left with a sliver of cut tile in the most visible spot in the room.
Choosing well matters more in a wet room than anywhere else in the house, because everything in it is under constant attack from water and steam. We specify tiles, cabinetry and fittings that will still be sound in a decade, and we’re upfront when something you like won’t behave the way you’re expecting.
We’ll also match choices to the house. A large-format tile with fewer grout lines suits a compact seventies bathroom far better than the small mosaics that were originally there. A slip-rated floor tile is worth the small premium if there are kids or older parents using the room. A semi-frameless screen often makes more sense than fully frameless once you factor in cleaning.
Design starts with a conversation about how the room actually gets used – how many people, at what time of morning, and what currently causes the bottleneck. From there we work out what the space will genuinely allow, then settle the look. Contemporary and pared-back or something more classic both suit these homes; what matters is that the layout underneath makes sense before anyone picks a tile.
The most common request we get in Baulkham Hills is losing the shower over the bath. It was standard in homes of this era and it’s the single thing people most want gone. Whether you end up with a separate shower and a smaller freestanding bath, or drop the bath entirely for a walk-in shower, depends on the footprint and on who’s likely to buy the house one day.
We’ll produce 3D renderings of the proposed bathroom before a single order goes in. In practice their most useful job is helping two people in the same household agree – it’s much easier to settle a debate about tile size or vanity colour when you can both look at the same room rather than two different mental pictures of it.
If your home was built or renovated before 1990, there’s a reasonable chance it contains asbestos materials, and wet areas are one of the places they turn up – behind wall tiles, under floor tiles, and in sheeting around the bath. It’s not a reason to panic, and undisturbed material in good condition is generally best left alone. But a bathroom renovation disturbs it by definition.
The practical position: we have suspect material tested before demolition rather than guessing. In NSW, more than 10 square metres of bonded asbestos must be removed by a SafeWork NSW licensed removalist, and 10 square metres is roughly one wall of an average bathroom – so bathroom jobs cross that line more often than people assume. Any amount of friable material requires a licensed removalist regardless of quantity, and a clearance certificate from an independent assessor is required before work continues.
The other thing worth knowing while the walls are open: homes of this vintage often still have their original copper or galvanised pipework. Replacing it during the renovation costs a fraction of what it costs to open finished tiling later.
One small room, five trades, and a fixed order they have to work in. We manage the whole run – approvals where they’re needed, trade bookings, supplier lead times, supervision and sign-off – so each trade arrives in a room that’s ready for them instead of a half-finished one.
Realistically that’s six to eight weeks on site for most bathrooms, with waterproofing to AS 3740 and its full curing time built into the programme rather than squeezed. Tile and fixture lead times sit outside that window, and if asbestos removal is involved it adds a few days. You’ll have the whole sequence in writing before we start, so you know which week is which.
You get one number to call and one person who knows the answer. We set out the scope and the price in writing at the start, then tell you where things are up to as the job moves – including when something changes, which occasionally it does in a fifty-year-old house. Nobody enjoys a surprise on a Friday afternoon, so we don’t create them.
The upgrades worth spending on in an older home aren’t the flashy ones. A properly sized exhaust fan ducted outside rather than into the roof space, which is where a lot of seventies bathrooms sent their moisture and paid for it in mould. A heated towel rail. A wall-hung vanity that shows more floor and makes a small room read larger. A shower niche instead of a wire caddy on the tapware.
Efficiency comes down to a handful of decisions made at the selection stage rather than one big gesture: a well-rated showerhead and tapware, a dual-flush pan, LED lighting on the right circuit. None of it changes how the room looks or feels. It does show up quarterly on your Sydney Water and electricity bills, which is usually the more convincing argument.
We work throughout Baulkham Hills and the surrounding suburbs, including Winston Hills, Northmead, North Rocks, Bella Vista, Norwest, Seven Hills, West Pennant Hills, Kellyville and Constitution Hill.
Nearby, we also cover bathroom renovations in Castle Hill, and you can see the full scope of our custom bathroom renovations in Sydney work across the city.
Enquire today or call us on 0414 717 111 for an obligation-free consultation, quote and evaluation of your entire kitchen renovation, bathroom renovation, laundry renovation or carpentry renovation project.
If the house was built or renovated before 1990, it’s possible – commonly in sheeting behind wall and floor tiles. We test before demolition rather than assume either way. Removal of more than 10 square metres of bonded asbestos, or any friable material, must be done by a SafeWork NSW licensed removalist, with a clearance certificate issued afterwards.
In most sixties and seventies homes, yes. The walls are already open, so the labour is a fraction of what it would be later, and old copper or galvanised pipe is the most likely thing to fail behind brand new tiling. We’ll tell you what condition yours is in once it’s exposed.
Almost always. It’s the most requested change we see in this suburb. How far you can go depends on the room’s dimensions and where the existing drainage sits – sometimes you keep a shorter bath alongside the shower, sometimes the bath goes and you gain a much larger shower.
Baulkham Hills falls entirely within The Hills Shire. A straight replacement that keeps the existing layout and plumbing usually qualifies as exempt development, meaning no application. Shifting walls, moving plumbing or extending the room takes it into Complying Development Certificate or DA territory, and we’ll flag that at quote stage.
The figure moves with the size of the room, whether plumbing stays put, what you choose for tiles and fixtures, and whether asbestos is involved. We’re a mid-priced operator by design – our clients come to us for management and finish rather than the lowest number. We’ll quote properly once we’ve seen the room.
Both, and we’ll send the paperwork before you commit to anything. We work under builder’s licence 301036C and we’re a Master Builders Association member.
