The best value wet area in the house
A laundry has the same underlying construction as a bathroom — waterproofing, tiling, plumbing, a floor waste — and far fewer fittings. That makes it the cheapest wet area to renovate, and by a wide margin the best value when done alongside something else.
So the practical advice is simple: if the bathroom is being done, get the laundry quoted at the same time even if you are not certain. Having the number on paper costs nothing and it is usually lower than people expect.
It works harder here
In a household of five or six — common across Canterbury-Bankstown — the laundry runs most days. That changes what matters in the specification.
Bench space beats finish quality. Somewhere to fold, which most original laundries simply do not have.
A deep trough beats a stylish one.
Storage that holds actual volume — detergent in bulk, a vacuum, cleaning gear — beats two decorative open shelves.
A floor that can be hosed or mopped without care beats a floor that looks good in a photograph.
None of that costs more. It is a matter of specifying for the household you have.
Three layouts
The full room. Bench, deep trough, overhead cupboards, room for a front-loader and a dryer, usually opening to the back yard. Standard in the post-war housing across Revesby, Padstow and Georges Hall. The single biggest improvement is continuous bench.
The galley. Narrow room, appliances under a bench on one side, storage above. Efficient, and the usual answer where the laundry is squeezed between the kitchen and the back door. Bench height and properly enclosed appliances make the difference between deliberate and improvised.
The European. Washer and dryer stacked in a cupboard, small trough or none. Standard in apartments and in houses where the space is worth more as living area. The critical detail is ventilation.
The dryer question
More laundry problems come from moisture than from anything else. A vented dryer pushes a lot of warm wet air into the room, and if it has nowhere to go it ends up in the ceiling, the cupboards and eventually the paint.
Either duct the vented dryer properly to outside, or use a condenser or heat-pump dryer that collects the moisture instead. In an enclosed cupboard the second is usually the better answer. Decide before the cabinetry is designed, because it affects the joinery.
The floor waste
Not every laundry has one, and whether yours needs one depends on the construction and the fixtures. Resolve it early — retrofitting a floor waste into a slab is a different order of work to including one in a floor being built up anyway.
The argument for having one is practical. The laundry contains the only appliance in the house connected to a pressurised water supply and routinely left running unattended. A failed hose in a room with a floor waste is a mopping job. Without one it is a flooring claim.
Cabinetry
Laundry cabinetry does not need to be expensive to be good. Off-the-shelf carcasses with a decent laminate or compact-laminate top will outlast the room's usefulness at a fraction of custom joinery with a stone top.
Custom earns its money in awkward spaces — under a stair, into a sloped ceiling, or where appliance dimensions are unusual. Carcasses should be a moisture-resistant board at minimum; this is not the place to save fifty dollars.
Program
Same sequence as any wet area — strip-out, rough-in, screed and falls, waterproofing, tiling, fit-off — across one to two working weeks standalone, or folded into the bathroom program at little added elapsed time when done together.
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. |
| Ensuite & Powder Room | Ensuites and powder rooms, where every millimetre counts and the set-out has to work around an existing bedroom or hallway. |
| Small Bathroom Renovations | Compact bathrooms where the win is removing what was making the room feel smaller than it is. |
| 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 a laundry renovation cost?
About $7,000 to $18,000 as a 2026 planning guide, depending on size, whether the cabinetry is off-the-shelf or custom, and whether the layout changes. A compact European-style laundry in a cupboard sits at the bottom; a full room with bench, overhead storage and a deep trough sits at the top.
Is it cheaper done with the bathroom?
Considerably. The trades are on site, the skip is ordered, the waterproofer is attending anyway and the tiles arrive in one delivery. The marginal cost of adding the laundry is well below what the same room costs standalone.
Does a laundry need waterproofing?
Laundries are wet areas and carry waterproofing requirements, though the extent differs from a bathroom and depends on the fixtures and floor construction. Ask for it in writing — exactly what is being waterproofed and to what height — rather than leaving it as an assumption.
Can the laundry move somewhere else?
Sometimes, and it is a bigger job than it sounds. It needs water, waste with fall, power and ventilation for a dryer. Moving a laundry into a garage or under a stair is common across these suburbs and usually workable on a suspended timber floor.
What size trough should I get?
Bigger than you think. The most common regret is a shallow tub. A 45-litre trough takes a mop bucket and handles soaking; a 35-litre one often will not. In a large household, a deep tub and a wide bench beside it are worth more day to day than any finish on the wall.