Apartment and Small Bathroom Renovations in Cronulla

The Cronulla unit bathroom

Cronulla has a lot of apartments, and most fall into two groups.

Red-brick walk-ups from the sixties and seventies, typically three or four storeys with no lift. Their bathrooms are compact, with a bath and shower-over, pastel or patterned tiles, a small window onto a light well or side boundary, and cast-iron or early PVC waste pipes in the slab.

Newer mid-rise buildings closer to the beach, the esplanade and the mall. Bathrooms are more standardised, often internal with no window, and fitted out in builder-grade finishes that have dated faster than the building.

In both, the constraints are the same: a fixed concrete slab, neighbours above and below, and an owners corporation that needs to approve the work.

Strata approval

Why approval is needed

Under NSW strata law, work that changes the waterproofing of a bathroom is generally classed as a major renovation, which normally needs a special resolution of the owners corporation at a general meeting. Waterproofing is treated this way because a failure affects other lots and common property.

What to prepare

• A scope of works describing what is removed and what is installed
• The waterproofing method and who is doing it
• Licence and insurance details for the builder and trades
• Drawings or a simple layout if anything is moving
• The program and working hours
• How common property is protected — lift lining, stair and corridor protection, entry doors
• Waste removal, including where any skip or bins will sit

Timing

The approval depends on the next general meeting, or an extraordinary one being called. Allow weeks, not days. Starting the paperwork while selections are still being made keeps the whole project moving.

Building rules and neighbours

Most buildings set limits on noise, commonly restricting noisy work to weekday daytime hours. Tile removal on a slab is loud, so strip-out usually takes longer in a unit than in a house.

Other common requirements:

• Lift bookings and protective blankets
• No materials stored in common areas
• Parking arrangements for trades, which are tight near the beach, especially on summer weekends
• Notice to neighbours before work starts

In a walk-up, every sheet of board, box of tiles and bag of rubbish goes up or down the stairs by hand. That is real labour and belongs in the quote.

Designing a small unit bathroom

Because the waste positions stay put, the gains come from how the room is fitted out.

• Replace the bath with a walk-in shower using the existing waste, with a fixed glass panel
• Tile floor to ceiling in a light, larger format
• Run one floor tile through the shower so the room reads as one space
• Wall-hung vanity with drawers and a slim, durable top
• Mirror cabinet across the vanity width, with lighting built in or above
• A niche in the shower wall if the wall type allows
• A cavity sliding door where a swinging door collides with the vanity or toilet

For an internal bathroom with no window, light colours and good lighting matter more than anything. So does the exhaust fan.

Ventilation in beach units

Unit bathrooms near the beach deal with humid air coming in and steam going out. Older walk-ups often have a small fan, or none, and some vent into shared shafts. Newer buildings usually have ducted exhaust, but the fans are often underpowered.

Improving the fan is one of the cheapest, most effective changes, though where the duct is common property the owners corporation may need to be consulted.

Holiday lets and investment units

Bathrooms in rented and holiday units need to handle heavy use and quick cleaning.

• Tapware with readily available parts, so a dripping mixer is a cartridge, not a replacement
• Tough vanity tops that resist sunscreen, hair dye and cleaning products
• Mid-tone grout that does not show every mark
• A fixed glass panel rather than a hinged door with seals to replace
• Hooks for wet towels

Schedule the work between tenancies or in the off-season. A realistic program plus strata approval time is worth mapping against the booking calendar well in advance.

Asbestos in older blocks

Walk-ups from before about 1990 may contain asbestos in bathroom wall linings, window surrounds or floor underlays. Suspect material is tested before strip-out, and removal is carried out by a licensed removalist. In a strata building, the owners corporation may also want to know how that removal is managed.

Waterproofing over someone's ceiling

A unit bathroom's floor is the ceiling of the unit below. The membrane, the falls, the puddle flange at each waste and the detail at the door threshold must all be done properly. Keep photographs of the membrane before tiling, and any waterproofing certificate, for the owners corporation and for future sale. See shower waterproofing.

The builder

Renovation work is carried out in partnership with Coastal Renovation Group, a licensed NSW builder. Licence and insurance details are provided on request, which is often the first thing a strata committee asks for. See renovation costs for 2026 bands.

Call 02 5850 4715 or send the unit details through.