Bathroom cabinets - why so expensive?

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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I'm refurbing a small cloakroom. One of the local firms was going to get the job but they decided labour (day plastering, half day decorator, half day electrics, 1.5 days from a fitter) should cost a crazy three and a half grand so obviously I'm project managing it myself :) Everything is going relatively well - nice things cost a lot, labour has gone up (but honestly isn't a grand a day...), copper is terrifyingly expensive. But the one thing I can't get my head around is bathroom cabinets.

These are a very small cupboard with a mirror on the front. I can barely find one below 200 quid. Even Ikea want about 150. Why is this?

And don't get me started on LEDs and bluetooth in a cabinet....I haven't even looked what the BT does but I know you can spend 1200 on a small mirrored box.

BTW Wickes do have cabinets for about £85. They are made by Croydex, are a very big player who get very bad reviews. I popped down to Wickes to take a look. I can see why.......
 
Go for a drive round your local bathroom stockists and see if you can pick up an ex display unit
 
Victoria plumbing website? Not sure of prices, wife and fitter are in charge, I’m only required at the end with my wallet.
 
mj4456 said:
Victoria plumbing website? Not sure of prices, wife and fitter are in charge, I’m only required at the end with my wallet.
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I have spent many hours on their website - a few of them happy :)

Cheapest is about 80 quid and I've seen that for real - it's disappointing. They go up to 2 and a half thousand pounds. For a small cupboard with a mirror on it.
 
Does it have to be the conventional sort of bathroom cabinet?
What about a piece of furniture to fit the purpose instead, eg a bedside table type of cupboard unit? Then you could just fit a mirror on the wall over the sink.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I'm refurbing a small cloakroom. One of the local firms was going to get the job but they decided labour (day plastering, half day decorator, half day electrics, 1.5 days from a fitter)
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Just out of curiosity Jonathan, how can a decorator do a newly plastered room in half a day?
He'd need to prep, mist coat and then 2 coats on the walls and I assume the trim would also need at least 2 coats, possibly 3. I'd expect it to be 2 days at least, maybe more. I'm not trying to justify the quote just thinking that maybe there is a bit more time involved to get it all done..
 
The gaffer went for a cabinet of the style the sink sits on and a heated, illuminated mirror for the wall, I may have sighed but kept reasonably silent about the cost to keep the peace.
 
stevewestern said:
Just out of curiosity Jonathan, how can a decorator do a newly plastered room in half a day?
He'd need to prep, mist coat and then 2 coats on the walls and I assume the trim would also need at least 2 coats, possibly 3. I'd expect it to be 2 days at least, maybe more. I'm not trying to justify the quote just thinking that maybe there is a bit more time involved to get it all done..
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You're right of course that decorating always takes longer than you expect. Since the room is 1.7m x 1.1m and it's completely empty with freshly plastered walls, the effort time to paint will be half a day. Elapsed will be much longer.

As it turns out, I'll be doing it myself so effort time is what counts. The manufacturers of the very expensive paint I'm using claim that a mist coat isn't necessary. We'll see....

The 3.5k quote didn't actually itemise decorating even though I specified it. If is wasn't so crazy high I would have questioned it. As it is, labour from 4 different trades will cost me about 1200 without decorating. So even if they included it, there's a lot of fat :)

ETA: they say I don't need a 50:50 mist coat. It's a highly breathable paint so 10-20% water in the first coat and then probably 1 further coat :)
 
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