The cheapest wet area to fix
A laundry is a small room with the same underlying construction as a bathroom — waterproofing, tiling, plumbing, a floor waste — and far fewer fittings. That combination makes it the least expensive wet area in the house to renovate, and by a comfortable margin the best value if it is done at the same time as something else.
That is the practical advice on this page, so it is worth stating plainly: if you are renovating the bathroom, get the laundry quoted at the same time even if you are not certain you will proceed. The number will surprise you in a good way, and having it on paper costs nothing.
Three laundry layouts that work
The full room. A dedicated laundry with a bench, a deep trough, a run of overhead cupboards and space for a front-loader and a dryer. Common in the interwar and post-war housing through Roseville, St Ives and Willoughby, often opening to the back yard. The single biggest improvement here is usually continuous bench space — somewhere to fold, which most original laundries simply do not have.
The galley. A narrow room, appliances under a bench on one side, storage above. Efficient, and the standard answer where the laundry is squeezed between the kitchen and the back door. Getting the bench height right and the appliances properly enclosed makes the difference between this feeling deliberate and feeling like a corridor with a washing machine in it.
The European laundry. Washer and dryer stacked in a cupboard, with a small trough or none at all. Standard in units through Chatswood, Crows Nest and North Sydney, and increasingly common in houses where the space is worth more as living area. The critical detail is ventilation: a dryer in an enclosed cupboard needs a real air path, and a condenser or heat-pump dryer is often the better answer than trying to duct a vented one.
Ventilation and the dryer question
More laundry problems come from moisture management than from anything else. A vented dryer pushes a substantial volume of warm, wet air into the room, and if that air has nowhere to go it ends up in the ceiling, the cupboards and eventually the paint.
The options are to duct the vented dryer properly to outside, or to use a condenser or heat-pump dryer that collects the moisture instead. In an enclosed European laundry the second is usually the more practical answer. Either way, this should be decided before cabinetry is designed, because it affects the joinery.
Cabinetry, benches and the trough
Laundry cabinetry does not need to be expensive to be good. Off-the-shelf carcasses with a decent laminate or compact-laminate top will outlast the room's usefulness and cost a fraction of custom joinery with a stone top. Where custom earns its money is in awkward spaces — under a stair, into a sloped ceiling, or where the appliance dimensions are unusual.
Two details worth spending on regardless of budget: a deep trough, and as much uninterrupted bench as the room allows. Everything else is preference.
The floor waste question
Not every laundry has a floor waste, and whether yours needs one depends on the construction and the fixtures. It is worth resolving early rather than discovering it at rough-in, because retrofitting a floor waste into a slab is a different order of work to including one in a floor that is already being built up.
The practical argument for having one is simple: a laundry is the room most likely to flood, because it contains the only appliance in the house connected to a pressurised water supply and routinely left running unattended. A failed washing machine hose in a room with a floor waste is a mopping job. In a room without one, it is a flooring claim.
If a floor waste is going in, it needs fall built to it in the screed, the same as a shower — which is why the waterproofing and screed stage matters here too.
Scope and program
A laundry renovation runs the same sequence as any other wet area — strip-out, rough-in, screed and fall, waterproofing, tiling, fit-off — usually across one to two working weeks standalone, or folded into the bathroom program at little added elapsed time when the two are done together.
If it is a unit, the same strata considerations apply as for a bathroom: work affecting waterproofing or common property generally needs owners corporation approval, and most schemes restrict work hours.
Call 02 4602 1201 or send the details through.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a laundry renovation cost?
As a 2026 planning guide, $8,000 to $20,000 depending on size, whether cabinetry is custom or off-the-shelf, and whether the layout changes. A small European-style laundry in a cupboard sits at the bottom of that range; a full room with bench, overhead storage, a large trough and a stone top sits at the top.
Is it cheaper to do the laundry with the bathroom?
Almost always. The trades are already on site, the skip is already ordered, the waterproofing is already being done and the tiles arrive in one delivery. The marginal cost of adding a laundry to a bathroom job is generally well below what the same laundry would cost standalone.
Can a laundry be moved to another part of the house?
Sometimes, and it is a bigger job than it sounds. It needs water, waste with fall, power, and ventilation for a dryer. Moving a laundry into a garage or under a stair is common on the North Shore and usually workable; moving it upstairs in a house not designed for it is a much larger conversation.
Does a laundry need waterproofing?
Laundries are wet areas and carry waterproofing requirements, though the extent differs from a bathroom and depends on the fixtures and floor construction. A contractor should tell you exactly what is being waterproofed, and to what height, in writing rather than leaving it as an assumption.
What size trough should I get?
The most common regret we hear is a trough that is too shallow. A 45-litre tub handles a mop bucket and soaking; a 35-litre one often will not. If you have space, a deeper tub with a wide bench beside it is worth more day to day than any finish you can put on the wall.