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Gold Coast Bathroom Renovations

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Timber-Look Laminates in Bathroom Renovation

Gold Coast Timber Laminate Benchtop
Timber Laminate Bathroom Renovation
Timber Laminate Bathroom Renovation Design
Timber Laminate Vanity Construction Gold Coast
Gold Coast Timber Laminate Benchtop
Timber Laminate Bathroom Renovation
Timber Laminate Bathroom Renovation Design
Timber Laminate Vanity Construction Gold Coast
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Timber Laminates in Bathroom Renovation

At Armrock Constructions, we specialise in bathroom renovations on the Gold Coast QLD. A feature of many of our renovations is the addition of a beautiful custom-made vanity unit; the centerpiece of any bathroom project. Bespoke vanity style is often achieved nowadays by utilising timber-look laminates for either the vanity benchtop, cabinet, or the entire vanity unit. The results are so effective that we wanted to showcase some of their uses and share information about their applications to demonstrate how they can be used to enhance your bathroom renovation project.

Meanwhile, If you’re looking for assistance with a bathroom renovation on the Gold Coast, please don’t hesitate to contact our team for a free consultation & quote.

Sections in this Article

What are Timber-Look Laminates?
Timber-Look Laminates in Bathroom Renovations
Timber Laminates in Our Projects
The Advantages of Laminates in Bathrooms

Timber Laminates in Vanity Units
Timber-Look Laminates in Bathroom Flooring
Laminate Products We Work With

What are Timber-Look Laminates?

Timber-look laminates are basically materials that are designed to look like natural timber. They’re called laminates because they are created through the process of lamination, which just means that they are constructed with multiple layers that are compressed together. If you’re really interested, you can learn more about the process on Wikipedia. The important thing to know about laminates is that they are hard-wearing, great-looking and perfectly suited to making beautiful bathroom vanities!

Timber-Look Laminates in Bathroom Renovations

In a bathroom renovation, timber-look laminates are most commonly used in the vanity unit. They’re a great asset to bring design concepts into reality. With the wide range of options and styles available, our team can help with the design, construction, and installation of your custom vanity unit. A wide range of effects can be created, producing bathrooms that are variously natural, industrial, juxtaposed, integrated. Following are examples from our recent Gold Coast renovation projects where you can learn more about how we created these effects using timber-look laminates.

Timber Laminates in our Projects

In these Gold Coast Bathroom renovation projects, our team used timber-look laminates for a variety of compelling results. Click through to learn more about the projects, or read on to learn more about timber-look laminates.

White Tile and Timber Style

This Gold Coast bathroom renovation evokes a classic style with all the modern mod-cons. It’s a great example of the work achieved by Armrock Constructions. Our renovations make a difference – if you’re on the Gold Coast, contact our team today for a free measure and quote. Read on to learn more about how we…

Continue Reading White Tile and Timber Style

The Advantages of Laminates in Bathrooms

The advantages of using a laminated product are best understood in comparison to using other materials for the same purpose. Actual timber is expensive and may be limited in the type and options that are available. Timber-look laminates, meanwhile, are available in a wide range of purpose-designed styles. They’re made for bathrooms! Their advantages include:

  1. Hard-wearing
  2. Wide range of styles
  3. Cost-effective
  4. Accessible
  5. Versatile
  6. Corners can be rounded
  7. Textural (some laminates have texture, just like the real thing)
  8. Strong
  9. Water Resistant

Timber laminates can be used to achieve virtually any look you can imagine. No wonder we love working with them so much! In this project illustrated below, you can see how the vanity cabinet and benchtop have been finished with stylish curves, creating continuity with the round mirror and curved bathtub. With a skilful team and a quality product, it’s amazing what can be achieved.

Curved Laminated Edges
Curved Laminated Edges

Timber-Look Laminates in Vanity Units

Timber-look laminates are commonly used in our projects to enhance custom vanity units. They can be used for the benchtop, cabinet, or both. The approach depends on the goal of the vanity unit and its intention in the bathroom. The presence of timber elevates the bathroom and helps to connect it with the outside world. Tonally, lighter or darker shades of timber can be used to create contrast in the bathroom, or with the vanity unit itself. Between our carpenters and the design goals, you can capitalise on possibilities such as rounded corners to give your vanity a winning and individual look. In the following image, you can see how the rich, warm timber-tones anchor and connect the greater bathroom elements for a juxtaposed, modern style.

Marble Tile Timber Laminate Vanity
Marble Tile Timber Laminate Vanity

The best thing about laminates is the way they have evolved. Laminates have been around for a long time, and they have come a long way. Whether you’re doing a budget renovation or a high-end renovation, laminates are an option to consider. The wide range of styles and excellent engineering available, in conjunction with their competitive price-point, make laminates an essential consideration in any bathroom renovation.

Timber-Look Laminate in Bathroom Flooring

Timber-look laminates are also often used as a solution for bathroom flooring. The attributes that make them a winning solution for vanities also apply to flooring. Due to their larger visual footprint in this role, they have the ability to have a truly transformational outcome on the bathroom design.

Laminate Products We Work With

We have been achieving great results with Nikpol’s EGGER range on our recent bathroom renovation projects. [Learn more about these options on their website] For timber laminates, this range even includes timber grain textures, making for a complete timber experience and creating a natural, calming aesthetic for your bathroom renovation.

In our Gold Coast renovations, we discuss options with our clients to communicate how your design objectives can be best met. Utilising the timber approach is a fantastic way to create affordable control, flexibly suiting the installation of the new vanity into an existing space.

Successful Gold Coast Bathroom Renovations

Bathroom renovations can be complex – numerous careful decisions and actions are required, in the right order, to build a bridge between your vision, your structure, your budget and your new bathroom. We’re here to help you make it a success. Get your bathroom renovation started today with the team from Armrock Constructions and make yours a success too.

Book a Free Renovation Consultation & Quote

The Design Advantage of a Built-In Shower

One of the design challenges in a bathroom renovation situation is tackling the design challenge of making elements of different shapes and sizes (shower, toilet, vanity, etc) look like they are a family. Accomplished well, a bathroom achieves an integrated look and feel – the ultimate goal of a bathroom renovator! Of all the elements, showers can be one of the more challenging to make ‘at home’ in a bathroom because of the oppositional nature of their tall, vertical structure to other low-set elements in the room.

One sure-fire way our team achieves a connection between showers and bathrooms, that have used with success on a number of our Gold Coast renovations, is to build the shower into the room.

Managing Your Bathroom Renovation Budget

Any bathroom renovation is a careful balance between style and budget. Finding the right balance is the key to a successful renovation. Accordingly, a built-in shower may not be for everyone – it’s going to cost more than a prefabricated shower. But it will solve the design challenge of integrating your shower into your bathroom design, along with a number of other advantages explained below.

Types of Built-In Showers

Building a shower into the bathroom can be done to different degrees and effects.

A shower might be completely screenless (a ‘wet’ shower) in a bathroom designed to accommodate it. Alternatively, it may be built into a partial or complete recess, in the shape and size you need to achieve your ideal bathroom.

From these distinctions follow a wide range of possibilities in style and function, since all aspects of built-in showers can be fully customised to suit the needs of your bathroom.

From the design point of view, the advantage of a built-in approach is that the shower is integrated into the room, rather than added in as a separate element and made to fit as best as possible.

Alternatives to Built-In Showers

The alternative option to a built-in shower is a prefabricated shower. They are purchased as a ready-to-go unit from a plumbing provider and installed by our team. We can help guide you to the right type of choice to suit your project, and then install them in our project. You can achieve a great result with a prefabricated shower. However, a built-in shower has the capability to take your bathroom to the next level.

Built-In Advantages

The principal advantage of a built-in shower is integration. Because the shower is being built as part of the room, choices about the shower can reflect and inform choices in the rest of the room, and vice-versa.

For example:

  • The tiling in your built-in shower can create a relationship with the rest of the room.
  • A built-in shower can also include a tiled niche for storage of items such as shampoo and soap.
  • Built-in showers can use shapes to compliment the flow of the room. They don’t have to be square (a common prefabricated shower shape).

Built-In Showers with Armrock Constructions

In addition to helping your shower to integrate with your bathroom, there are other advantages to having a built-in shower. It can be designed for an optimal fit in dimension, functionality, shape and style. A quality built-in shower will enhance the resale value of your home and enjoyment of the bathroom for many years to come.

Book a Free Renovation Consultation & Quote

Reconfiguring Your Bathroom

Undertaking a bathroom renovation, you have the ability to completely reimagine how things are going to work. As a starting point, most people evaluate the potential of their new bathroom based on the previous bathroom configuration. While it may be more economical to retain the previous bathroom arrangement, relocating them can open up a range of new possibilities which will create a more ideal room. On this page, we look at some of the important considerations behind reconfiguring your bathroom in a renovation.

The Cost of Reconfiguration

A sensible bathroom renovation is always grounded in a budget, and it should be pointed out early in the piece that moving items such as showers, baths and vanities to different locations in your bathroom will most likely increase the cost of your renovation. This is mainly due to the fact that plumbing and electricity may need to be changed to accommodate the new arrangement. The extent of any reconfiguration will depend on both the extent of your existing infrastructure and the ambition of your upgrade. Just ask our team – we’re here to help and can answer any questions you may have on this topic.

Reinventing the Wheel: Avoid

In older homes, it can be astonishing to see some of the decisions made around critical rooms such as bathrooms and kitchens. Choices and combinations may seem nonsensical when viewed through a modern lens.

On other occasions, and with additional analysis, you may note that your designing predecessors have deftly resolved a multitude of challenges with a solution that won’t be beaten no matter how hard you try. If someone has put the energy into solving the layout once, it’s worthwhile to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their solution before you completely ditch it. It could be the case that a subtle shift is all that you need to turn the old layout into the perfect layout – or perhaps the layout is already as good as it gets. Don’t reinvent the wheel when you’re renovating your bathroom!

Prioritisation

In the quest for the perfect bathroom layout, it is useful to consider the priorities that really matter in any bathroom. In other words, before you decide to move the shower, make sure you can open the shower door in the new location.

Before you start shifting things around, think about:

Privacy

It’s your bathroom and privacy is always the highest priority. Ensuring you can comfortably use your shower and toilet without your neighbours accidentally ‘catching a glimpse’ should always be pretty high on your list of decisions.

Access

Make sure you can access everything in your dream bathroom layout. Opening drawers, opening the shower door, opening and closing the main door.. all of these are imperative in a good design, and all of them need some consideration. Anything that moves – make sure you will be able to operate it easily and without creating a cramped situation.

Logical Placement

Putting everything where it looks great may not make for an optimal configuration. What would you prefer, a great-looking bathroom that is less easy to use, or an easy to use bathroom that looks great? Anyway, give some thought to the practical usage of the room, and especially how it will work if your partner or child decides that they simply have to brush their teeth or shave at the same time as when you’re using the bathroom. Make sure everything is placed to logically accommodate these common scenarios!

Gold Coast Bathroom Design

If you’d really like to know how to make the most of your bathroom on your budget, please contact our team for a free measure and quote. We would be glad to share our years of experience and capability of our integrated bathroom renovation team with you to make your old bathroom into a fantastic new space.

Shower Heads

A shower is an inclusion in practically every bathroom renovation, and the choice of shower head is a great opportunity to not only make your new bathroom look great, but also be practically useful for the way you and your family use the shower. On this page, we look at important considerations and choices to make regarding your shower head in a bathroom renovation situation.

Water Usage

Embarking on a bathroom reno, it’s a great idea to familiarise yourself with the WELS system and water-saving in your product choices. You can read more about this system here. Making water-saving choices in the acquisition of your bathroom fixtures and fittings is a great way to design a bathroom you can feel great about. If you’re in any doubt as to how to proceed, just talk to our friendly team – we’re here to help.

A Confident Stylistic Approach

Savvy bathroom renovators will have done their research and have a clear design objective in mind for their new bathroom. Bathrooms are not ‘one-size fits all’. Their appeal is very subjective, and if you’re going to the trouble to renovate your bathroom, a priority should always be your own personal satisfaction with the end result!

One great way to achieve a harmonious style in your bathroom is to synchronise the style of your highlight accessories. Shower heads are a great example. Being an irregular shape, they tend to stand out – but by extending their style to door-handles, tapware, mirror trims, towel-rails and other bathroom features, you can create a united approach. This allows you to approach your stylistic choices confidently by asking the question, “What colour are my trims?” and allowing your shower head to fall into that basket with the rest of them.

Finding Your Shower Head

The only downfall of designing your dream bathroom from browsing the internet is the possible difficulty of locating fixtures and fittings in the precise style you’re looking for. In this regard, it can be helpful to have a little bit of flexibility in exactly what you’re going for, as local choices may not perfectly align with the Swiss Retro look you saw on Pinterest. When it comes time to shop for your fixtures and fittings, talk to our team. We can help you connect with local suppliers and fulfil your requirements to achieve your dream bathroom.

Successful Gold Coast Bathroom Renovations

Bathroom renovations can be complex – numerous careful decisions and actions are required, in the right order, to build a bridge between your vision, your structure, your budget and your new bathroom. We’re here to help you make it a success. Get your bathroom renovation started today with the team from Armrock Constructions and make yours a success too.

Shower Shapes and Sizes

Shower Shapes & Sizes
Shower Shapes & Sizes

Typically, a shower is an odd-shaped feature in the range of elements that make up a bathroom. Unlike the other low-set, horizontal features, a shower is tall and vertical. Integrating the shower so it feels nicely in the room can be a challenge. One way overcoming this challenge is by using showers of different shapes and sizes. This is the topic we explore here today.

A Most Important Choice

The most important choice at the beginning relates to your budget, and how you intend to approach your shower: will you opt for a prefabricated or a custom-built shower? This decision will greatly affect the shapes and sizes available to you. A brief word on each follows:

Prefabricated Showers

Prefabricated showers are purchased ready-to-use. We install them as they come. Prefabricated showers are manufactured in standard shapes and sizes, so their options are somewhat limited in this regard. Prefabricated showers are a less expensive option.

Custom Showers

Custom showers are designed and built by our team. Their shape and size is only limited by the bathroom itself. Stylistically, custom showers are much easier to integrate into a room, since they are part of the room. Custom-built showers may cost more, but have the potential to really take your bathroom to the next level.

The Room Shape Factor

Different shaped rooms create different kinds of challenges for accommodating a shower into the design. In small bathrooms (like an ensuite), a shower tucks perfectly into the room. No wider and not much lower than the ceiling, it’s easy to make a shower feel right at home.

However, in larger guest and main bathrooms, it can be harder to make sense of a shower when it’s the only vertical addition in a room of otherwise low-set elements. In contrast to the the toilet, the vanity & the bath, which are all waist-high or lower, the shower can tend to stand out if no diligence to this problem is given.

The Role of Shower Screens

Regardless of the type of shower you opt for, one way to help fit the shower into the room is to minimise its presence. This can be accomplished by the type of shower screen used. A shower screen is comprised of screens, frames, and hinges. All of these components can accentuate or diminish the visual presence of your shower inside the bathroom.

By minimising the presence of your shower with a lower-profile shower-screen, the shape becomes easier to incorporate into the room. Generally, less expensive shower solutions also tend to have a stronger visual presence. With a custom option, we can help you create whatever type of effect you would like.

Shower Floor Concepts

The whole point of having a bathroom renovation is to refresh the old bathroom with a new, invigorated style. In the design phase, it’s important not to be limited by preconceptions about what a shower should be. The traditional concept of a shower as a square-based, vertical enclosure is only one way of approaching a shower.

A custom shower floor can be a square, rectangle, circle, or a multifaceted shape. A key advantage of custom showers is the capability to build the shower with sympathy to the room. Using shapes that reflect, or complement the overall shape of the room helps the shower to find a home in the space. For example, in a long rectangular bathroom, a longer, rectangular shower-floor will have an integration advantage over a square-shaped floor.

One of the great aspects of our service lies in problem-solving. If you’re worried about getting a good result from you choice of shower, just ask our team. We provide a free consultation, and we’d be glad to help you find a solution that is just right for your perfect bathroom.

Successful Gold Coast Bathroom Renovations

Bathroom renovations can be complex – numerous careful decisions and actions are required, in the right order, to build a bridge between your vision, your structure, your budget and your new bathroom. We’re here to help you make it a success. Get your bathroom renovation started today with the team from Armrock Constructions and make yours a success too.

Double Sliding Shower Bathroom Renovation

Bathrooms come in many shapes and sizes, and when it’s time to renovate, the possibilities are virtually endless. This can actually make it hard to know what to do. After all, you’re after the best solution, but sometimes it isn’t exactly clear what that is. We specialise in bathroom renovations, so please contact our team to make sense of your renovation. Join us on a tour of a recent project:

Book a Free Renovation Consultation & Quote

Warm Tones, Different Materials

Warm tones are wonderful in bathrooms, and as you can see below, these tones can be created by a variety of different materials. In this picture, the tactility of the timber mirror, brown/red grout lines, brushed brass tap ware and towel come together for a warm, inviting impression. You will always feel welcome in this bathroom!

Learn more about tapware

Vanity and Mirror
Vanity and Mirror

Custom Vanity Unit

Just because a vanity unit is custom-made doesn’t mean it’s complex. In fact, the opposite is often true. The greatest advantage of custom vanities are in their dimensions – they can be made to fit into any space. Apart from that, it’s all about style. This vanity has a simple, double-drawer front with a stone top, mounted basin, and brushed brass tapware.

Learn more about custom vanities

Custom Vanity Unit
Custom Vanity Unit

Mounted Vanity Basin

Mounted basins are all the rage at the moment. They create an old-world vibe which is also practical and looks amazing in any bathroom. If you’re considering a mounted basin, our team can help with some great ideas about where to source components on the Gold Coast, as well as what to look for in order to achieve a great result.

Brushed Brass Tapware & Vanity
Brushed Brass Tapware & Vanity

Double Sliding Shower

This is a handy feature which is perfect for bathrooms where space is tight. The double sliding door opens up allowing entry where a conventional door (standard or sliding) just wouldn’t work.

Learn more about shower options here

Double Sliding Shower
Double Sliding Shower

In-Wall Cistern

Going with an in-wall cistern (see below – the buttons are built into the wall) helps to integrate the room and also creates a sense of more space.

Learn more about toilets here

In Wall Cistern
In Wall Cistern

Contact Our Team

Armrock Constructions are renovation specialists in the Gold Coast. We’re dedicated to achieving an excellent out come for all of our customers. If you’re interested in a bathroom renovation, contact us – we provide a free measure and quote.

Book a Free Renovation Consultation & Quote