What a bathroom renovation includes and what it costs
A full bathroom renovation in Barcelona means rebuilding plumbing, drainage, electrics, waterproofing and finishes on a checked substrate, not just replacing tiles. Within a whole-home renovation, the bathroom falls under our price levels: Basic from €1,000/m², Standard from €2,000/m² and Luxury from €3,000/m², excluding VAT.
A standalone bathroom is quoted item by item after a site visit and measurements, because in a few square metres three things drive the cost: whether fixtures move, what sits behind the walls, and which taps and wall finishes you choose. A concealed thermostatic mixer and large-format porcelain tiles shift the price more than the floor area does.
What you find when you open up a bathroom in an older building
In buildings in the Eixample, Gràcia or Sant Gervasi it is common to find galvanised iron or even lead pipes, fibre-cement downpipes, beam-and-infill floor slabs and floors with no fall towards the drain. None of this is visible when you view a finished bathroom; it appears on the first day of demolition.
So before fixing a price we check what can be checked without breaking anything: the ceiling of the flat below, water pressure, the type of downpipe in the light well, and any old damp stains. Whatever remains uncertain goes into the estimate as a conditional item with its own price, so it does not become a surprise halfway through the job.
Moving the toilet or shower: the downpipe decides
The toilet is the least flexible fixture: its waste pipe is wide and needs a continuous fall to the downpipe. Moving it a metre or two often means raising the floor or running the pipe through the ceiling of the flat below, which needs the neighbour's consent and, if the shared downpipe is touched, the approval of the comunidad de propietarios.
A level-access shower has a similar issue: a linear drain needs depth under the finished floor. In an old slab that depth is not always there, and cutting into the slab is not an option. Before falling for a layout, ask for each drain to be marked on the actual floor, along with how many centimetres the floor level will rise.
Waterproofing: the part you never see
Waterproofing goes on the repaired substrate, runs up the walls in the shower area and is reinforced at corners, drains and pipe penetrations with dedicated tapes. Then comes a watertightness test: the drain is plugged, the shower area is flooded and we check that nothing reaches the ceiling below.
This test happens before tiling. If someone suggests laying porcelain straight onto the screed to save a day, the future repair will mean stripping the whole bathroom and your neighbour's ceiling. The full step-by-step detail is in our complete bathroom renovation guide.
Decisions to lock in before work starts
In a bathroom, the purchasing sequence dictates the building sequence. Concealed taps, the wall-hung toilet frame, the shower tray or drain and the ceiling spotlights go in during the services stage, weeks before a single tile appears. If the model has not been chosen by then, work stops or a base gets installed that later does not fit.
The minimum list: fixtures with exact product references, taps and their concealed body, tile format and setting-out, shower screen type, lighting and mirror, and an extractor fan venting outside or to the light well. In an Eixample flat with an internal bathroom and no window, the extractor is not an accessory: it is what keeps damp off the ceiling.
The building community, permits and the neighbours
A bathroom renovation in a flat almost always needs a municipal procedure; the exact type depends on the scope and is confirmed by the technician, with details in our permits guide. On top of that, the comunidad de propietarios usually sets noise hours, lift use rules and stairwell protection.
Let the neighbour below know before work starts and leave a contact number. If a deteriorated shared pipe turns up during demolition, the property manager is contacted before replacing it, because the repair of a common element is not yours alone to pay for.
How to get started
Send us photos of the current bathroom, a floor plan or rough measurements, and what you want to change: moving the shower, gaining storage, switching to a wall-hung toilet. We reply within an hour and arrange a visit. On site our own crew does the work; very specific jobs, such as a made-to-measure glass screen, go to trusted subcontractors, with a single site manager who talks to you in Russian or Spanish.
Payment is by stages under the contract. If this is the only bathroom in the home, we plan together how daily life will work during the renovation; we cover that in detail in a separate article.