Why this is the most-asked job here
Households across Canterbury-Bankstown are frequently larger than the Sydney average, and multi-generational living is common. A four-bedroom house with a single bathroom is a daily scheduling problem, not a theoretical shortcoming.
So the conversation here is less often "make this bathroom nicer" and more often "where can we fit another one". That is a better question, and it usually has an answer.
The three places a second bathroom fits
Off the main bedroom. The classic ensuite. Needs about 2.2 square metres carved from the bedroom, and the bedroom has to be big enough to lose it without becoming awkward.
Into an underused bedroom. In a four-bedroom house where one room has become storage, converting it to a second bathroom plus a small study or robe frequently does more for daily life than keeping a room nobody sleeps in.
Out of the laundry or a hallway. An oversized laundry can often give up enough space for a powder room, and it already has drainage — which makes it the cheapest option when it works.
The drainage decides everything
Every one of those options comes down to the same question: how far does the new waste have to travel to reach an existing stack, and is there enough fall to get it there.
This is where the local housing stock helps. Most of the post-war housing across Bankstown, Greenacre and Padstow sits on suspended timber floors. A plumber can work from underneath, run new waste at a proper gradient, and connect without cutting anything. That makes a second bathroom genuinely affordable in a way it is not in a slab-floor building.
Where a later slab extension is involved — and many of these houses have one — the picture changes for that part of the house. Establishing which construction you have, in which part, is the first thing a measure resolves.
Granny flats
Canterbury-Bankstown has a large number of secondary dwellings, and a granny flat bathroom is its own small job: compact, self-contained, with a single drainage connection.
Two things to sort out early. The approval position — how the flat itself was approved affects what you can do inside it. And the drainage connection, which may or may not be shared with the main house.
Three decisions that make a small room work
The door. A hinged door consumes roughly 800mm of arc. In a room 1.6m wide that is most of the usable floor. A cavity slider costs more and needs the wall depth, but it frequently buys back the only space there is.
The shower entry. A fixed panel with a walk-in entry, rather than a screen with a swinging door, removes the second arc and opens the room visually.
The basin. A wall-hung basin or a slimline vanity at 400mm depth instead of a standard 550mm. In a room this size, 150mm of returned depth is the difference between comfortable and tight.
Ventilation is not optional
A small wet room concentrates moisture, and a powder room with no window relies entirely on the fan. Get it ducted to outside rather than into the roof cavity, sized to the room, and on a run-on timer.
This is a rough-in decision because it needs a cable and a duct path. It is also the thing that decides whether the room smells right in five years.
Doing it with the main bathroom
If the main bathroom renovation is happening anyway, adding the ensuite at the same time is meaningfully cheaper per room. The trades are on site, the skip is ordered, the waterproofer is already attending and the tiles arrive in one delivery.
The trade-off is losing two rooms at once, which in a large household is a real consideration rather than a detail.
Call 02 4404 0504 or send the details through.
The rest of what we do
| Bathroom Renovations | Full bathroom renovations — strip-out, rough-in, waterproofing, tiling and fit-off managed as one job. |
| Small Bathroom Renovations | Compact bathrooms where the win is removing what was making the room feel smaller than it is. |
| Laundry Renovations | Laundries renovated on their own or alongside the bathroom, which is almost always the cheaper way to do both. |
| Waterproofing | The membrane stage — the part of the job you never see again, and the one that decides whether the room lasts. |
| Bathroom Tiling | Floor and wall tiling, falls to waste, niches and set-outs — the finish most people actually judge the room on. |
| Vanities & Cabinetry | Vanities, mirror cabinets and storage sized to the room rather than to whatever the showroom had in stock. |
Questions people ask before they commit
How much does adding an ensuite cost in Bankstown?
As a 2026 planning guide, an ensuite built into existing floor area runs about $14,000 to $25,000 and a powder room $7,000 to $14,000. The range is wide because the drainage route drives it: reaching an existing stack cheaply and reaching it expensively are very different jobs in the same house.
Where does a second bathroom usually go?
Off the main bedroom, into an underused fourth bedroom, or out of an oversized hallway or the end of a laundry. In a single-storey house on a suspended timber floor there is usually more than one workable option, and the cheapest one is whichever sits closest to existing drainage.
What is the smallest workable ensuite?
Around 2.2 to 2.5 square metres for a shower, toilet and small basin, and only if the door swing and the shower entry are resolved carefully. A powder room — toilet and basin — works comfortably in about 1.2 square metres.
Can I put a bathroom in a granny flat?
Yes, and it is common work across Canterbury-Bankstown. A secondary dwelling bathroom is a small, self-contained job with its own drainage connection and its own approval position depending on how the flat was approved. Worth establishing that before design rather than after.
Does a powder room need waterproofing?
It carries wet-area requirements, and the extent depends on the fixtures and the floor construction. A room with no shower has a lesser requirement than a full bathroom, but lesser is not none. The contractor should tell you in writing exactly what is being waterproofed and to what height.