We renovate bathrooms, en-suites, cloakrooms and kitchens on the Costa del Sol as a single contractor. We remove the old room, renew pipes and waste, waterproof, tile or apply a seamless finish, fit everything and clean up. Electrics are carried out by authorised partner installers under our coordination. The quote is itemised and free, and photos plus an approximate floor area are enough to start.
Why does a bathroom renovation start behind the tiles?
In many Spanish apartments the original bathroom was tiled directly over the brick, with galvanised or copper supply pipes and narrow waste pipes buried in the floor screed. Nothing was waterproofed in the way a modern shower needs. When owners replace only the visible parts, the old pipe joints and the missing membrane stay exactly where they were.
That is why our bathroom jobs normally begin with a full strip-out to the structure. Once the walls and floor are open we can see what condition the pipes are in, where the waste runs and how much height there is for a shower fall. Our bathroom renovation page walks through the full scope, and the waterproofing guide explains the layers that go back in.
Can the bath be replaced by a shower in any bathroom?
In most cases, yes, but the result depends on what is underneath. A floor-level shower needs enough depth for the waste pipe to fall towards the soil stack. In a ground-floor villa that is rarely a problem; in an apartment block with a concrete slab, the waste may have to run in the old screed depth or the shower floor may need to sit slightly higher than the rest of the room.
We check this during the visit rather than promising a flush threshold from a photo. If a completely flat floor is not possible, a low-profile tray or a single small step can still give a clean, safe result. See bath-to-shower conversions and the step-by-step conversion guide.
What actually keeps water out of the floor below?
Not the tiles and not the grout. Both let moisture through over time. What protects the structure is a continuous waterproof layer applied to the prepared walls and floor of the wet zone, turned up at the corners, sealed around the drain and around every pipe that passes through it. Tiles or a seamless finish are then bonded on top.
In an apartment the neighbour below is the first to notice when this layer is missing or broken. We build it as a separate stage, keep it visible until it has been checked, and only then let the tiler start. The order matters more than the brand of any product.
Tiles or a seamless finish: what is the real difference?
Tiles are modular, tolerant of small movements in the building and easy to repair one piece at a time. A seamless coating gives a continuous surface without grout lines, which many owners like for walk-in showers and basin counters. It also asks more of the base: cracks or movement underneath tend to show through.
Neither is automatically better. We explain the trade-offs on the tiling and seamless bathroom pages, and in the article seamless finish or tiles. For textured gotelé walls elsewhere in the property, our sister site quitargotelemalaga.eu covers wall smoothing and painting.
How do you make a small bathroom work better?
Many coastal apartments have an en-suite squeezed between bedrooms and a guest WC under the stairs. The fixes are rarely about decoration. A wall-hung WC frees floor space and makes cleaning easier; a shower that runs the full width of the room avoids a cramped corner tray; a door that opens outwards or slides gives back the space inside.
Niches built into a stud wall replace shelves that collect water, and a single large mirror with indirect light makes the room read larger. The small bathroom page and the layout guide go into the options.
What should happen before new kitchen units arrive?
A kitchen is mostly services: water supply, waste, a dedicated circuit for the oven and hob, sockets at worktop height and a route for the extractor. Once the units and the worktop are in, every one of these is hidden and expensive to move. So the plumbing and electrical positions are fixed first, the walls and floor are finished behind where the units will stand, and only then does the furniture go in.
Opening the kitchen to the living area adds another layer: whether the wall can come down at all, where the extractor will exhaust and how smells and noise travel. See kitchen renovation, open-plan kitchens and the kitchen sequence guide.
Who does the electrical work in a bathroom?
Bathrooms are treated as a special location in Spain’s low-voltage electrical regulations, with zones around the bath or shower where sockets, switches and light fittings are restricted. That work is carried out by authorised partner installers who work under our coordination, not by our own tilers or plumbers.
For you nothing changes in practice: you still have one point of contact and one schedule. What it means on site is that light positions, extractor fan, heated towel rail and mirror lighting are agreed early so the cables are in place before the waterproofing and finishes go on.
Do I need permission from the community to redo my bathroom?
Inside your own apartment you can normally change the bathroom and kitchen, but anything that touches the building’s shared elements is different. The main soil stack, the structure and the façade belong to the community. Spain’s Horizontal Property Act also expects owners to notify the community’s representative before carrying out works in their unit.
The town hall side depends on the scope and the municipality: in Andalusia many interior works are covered by a declaración responsable, a sworn notice filed with the ayuntamiento, rather than a full licence. We tell you which parts of your job may need this, but the filing itself is yours or your administrator’s (municipal requirements: to be verified for each town).
Sources: Ley 49/1960 de Propiedad Horizontal, art. 7.1; Ley 7/2021 (LISTA).
What makes one bathroom quote higher than another?
We do not publish prices, because two bathrooms with the same floor area can need very different work. The usual drivers are how much has to be stripped out, whether the waste has to move, the condition of the walls, the type of shower floor, the size and format of the tiles or the choice of a seamless finish, the sanitaryware and taps, and how easy it is to get materials up and debris out.
Our article on what makes a bathroom cost more explains each factor. For how renovation costs are built up in general, see presupuestoreforma.eu.
What do we not do?
We renovate existing bathrooms and kitchens. We do not prepare architect’s projects, energy certificates or licence applications, and we do not build pools, new houses or air-conditioning systems. If the original pipes or a cistern turn out to be asbestos cement, removal must be done by a registered specialist; our partner site retiradauralitamalaga.eu deals with that.
If the bathroom is part of a wider job across the whole property, the full renovation site explains how we coordinate everything else.