Most bathroom renovations have a builder or project manager in the middle, coordinating the trades. Not this one. The homeowners on this Glenview, Hamilton project decided to project manage it themselves: booking their own contractors, setting the schedule, and making the calls.
It's a brave approach that can save real money, if the trades you bring in know how to work together. Which is where plumber Josh from Grayson & Co Plumbing and Gas and electrician Hugo from Alectrics come in.
The Starting Point: A Bathroom Straight Out of the 1960s
The bathroom hadn't fundamentally changed since the house was built in the 1960s. Centre stage was a dated shub, that classic Kiwi shower-over-bath combo that made sense when it was installed and hasn't made sense for a few decades since.
"Shubs were the standard for years," says Josh. "But they're awkward to step into, hard to clean, and most people with one only ever use the shower half anyway. Ripping one out is one of the most common requests we get."
The Plan: A Level Entry Tiled Shower
Out went the shub. In its place: a level entry tiled shower with glass screens. No lip to step over, no bath taking up half the room, just a clean, open, walk-in shower.
Level entry showers have become the go-to for renovations, and not only for the look. "There's no step, so it works for every age and stage," says Josh. "People are thinking longer term with their renos now. A level entry shower is one of those choices you never regret."
The catch is that a level entry shower is one of the least DIY-friendly things you can put in a bathroom. The floor has to be built to fall toward the waste, and the waterproofing has to be perfect, because there's no tray containing the water. It's a job where the trades behind the walls matter as much as the tiles in front of them.
Josh's Part: New Plumbing for a New Layout
Swapping a shub for a tiled shower isn't a plug-and-play job. The old plumbing was set up for a bath and shower combination, so Josh replaced the pipework to suit the new shower: new supply lines, a new mixer position, and drainage placed exactly where the tiler needs the floor to fall.
The toilet got an upgrade too. Rather than the old exposed connection, the water supply now feeds into the back of the toilet, a concealed inlet that gives a much cleaner look and makes the toilet easier to clean around. "It's a small detail," says Josh, "but it's the kind of thing that makes a renovated bathroom look renovated, not just repainted."
Hugo's Part: Prewire, Feature Lighting, Extraction and a Heated Towel Rail
While the walls were open, Hugo was in to do the prewire, getting all the cabling in place before the linings and tiles went on, wiring for a heated towel rail, installing a new extractor fan, and setting up feature lighting to show off the new tiled shower.
"The prewire stage is everything in a bathroom," says Hugo. "Once the waterproofing and tiles are on, nobody wants to open that wall again. So you get every cable in the right place the first time."
The extractor fan matters more than most people think, especially with a level entry shower. An open, walk-in shower puts more steam into the room than an enclosed one, and in a Waikato winter that moisture has nowhere to go without proper extraction. "A good extractor fan is what protects everything else in the renovation," says Hugo. "All that new tiling, the paint, the glass. Moisture is the enemy of all of it."
And the feature lighting is what takes the bathroom from renovated to designed. "Standard bathrooms get one light in the middle of the ceiling and that's it," says Hugo. "Feature lighting lets you highlight the tiling and the shower, and it completely changes how the room feels at night."
The heated towel rail rounds it out: warm towels through winter, and another quiet helper in keeping the moisture down.
What Makes an Owner-Managed Reno Work
With no builder in the middle, the sequencing lands on the homeowners, and on the trades talking to each other directly. Get the order wrong on a level entry shower and it gets expensive: plumbing rough-in has to happen before the floor is built up, the prewire before the linings, waterproofing before tiles, and Josh and Hugo both back for final fix after tiling.
"Because Hugo and I already work together, the homeowners didn't have to referee," says Josh. "We sorted the sequence between us and just told them what was happening when."
Thinking About Ditching Your Own Shub?
If your bathroom is still rocking its original shub, a level entry shower conversion is one of the most transformative renovations you can do. And it's very achievable, whether you bring in a project manager or run it yourself with the right trades.
For the plumbing side across Te Awamutu, Hamilton, Kihikihi, Pirongia, Ōhaupō and Cambridge, get in touch with Josh at Grayson & Co Plumbing and Gas for a free quote. For the electrical, talk to Hugo at Alectrics. Or call either of them and they'll bring the other on board.
