Laundry renovations in Melbourne start from $8,000+ on the live site. That floor is a smart refresh: tiling, cabinetry, a trough and tapware, and appliance fit-off in a room that already exists. It is not a combined laundry-toilet split, not a full custom run with a stone top, and not a stacked apartment with after-hours demolition. When the laundry is built as a wet area it also needs AS 3740 thinking, which is a different cost line to a dry cupboard with a washing machine. This guide breaks those jobs apart so the $8,000+ figure is used as a floor, not as a wish.
What $8,000+ covers — and when it does not
The starting laundry renovation is a room with a known waste, a place for machines, and finishes that can be replaced without moving walls. New floor and wall tiling, cabinets, a solid-surface benchtop, trough and tapware, and hooking the appliances back up sit in that band. You are buying a working laundry, not a mudroom addition.
The number leaves this floor when you ask for a full custom run, a stone top, hanging and drying space designed as joinery, or a complete plumbing and waterproofing rebuild. The live site’s fuller laundry work sits from around $14,000+ for that complete overhaul. Treat those as bands after measure-up, not as products with invented names. A dryer vent, a bunded machine tray and a door that actually contains noise are small lines that still belong in the first quote so they are not discovered as extras after the cabinets are hung.
| Brief | From | Typical work |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh | $8,000+ | Tiles, cabinets, trough, tapware, appliance fit-off |
| Full laundry | ~$14,000+ | Custom joinery, stone, hanging, plumbing, waterproofing if wet |
| Split or relocate | Quoted | New walls, second waste, door, possibly a permit path |
Combined laundry-toilet splits
Plenty of Melbourne cottages still have a toilet in the laundry. Splitting them is a small planning exercise with outsized daily value: a door, a second extract, and a waste that can stay on the stack. The joinery then has a wall to stop against instead of a pan beside the dryer.
The cost is walls and services, not paint. If the room is 2.4 m wide you can often keep machines on one side and a compact toilet behind a cavity slider. If it is 1.6 m, you may be choosing which function wins. Houses in Yarraville lean-tos hit this limit often. Do not assume a split is a cheap extra on an $8,000 refresh — it is closer to a second wet corner.
Cabinetry is the laundry
A laundry without joinery is a shed with taps. Overhead cupboards hide chemicals. A bench over front loaders is folding space. A tall broom cupboard stops mops living on the bath. Hanging rails need a drip zone that does not soak the cabinets. Those metres of carcass are the quote.
Bayside family homes around Hampton often want the laundry to take school bags and sandy towels as well as machines. That is a mudroom-leaning brief: a bench, hooks, a durable floor, a door to the yard. It still starts from the laundry floor, then adds joinery width and a better door. If you also want a bathroom-grade shower in the same room, you have left laundry pricing and entered wet-area bathroom pricing from $14,000+.
When a laundry is a wet area
If the floor is tiled to take overflow, if there is a shower rose, if a trough is used in a way that soaks walls, treat the room as a wet area. AS 3740 detailing, falls and a certificate belong in that quote. A machine in a cupboard off a kitchen, with a bund and a waste, is a different, drier job — still needing a safe waste and a door that contains noise, but not a full shower membrane.
Be honest about how the room is used. A “laundry” that is also the dog wash and the kids’ sandy shower is a bathroom that happens to hold a dryer. Price the membrane. Skipping it to stay near $8,000+ is how the kitchen ceiling stains the following winter.
Stacked apartments and shared wastes
Apartment laundries are usually a cupboard on the wet stack. You can improve joinery, the trough and the door. You rarely relocate the waste. After-hours demolition, quiet grinding and lift bookings add labour to a room that looks tiny on the plan. Body corporate rules may limit floor wastes or require a tray. Those conditions should appear in the quote, not on day two.
If the laundry sits inside the kitchen run, sequence the two rooms so stone and splashback are not cut around a future trough. Combined programmes save dust. They do not merge the price floors: kitchen from $20,000+, laundry from $8,000+, each scoped.
Pristine Renovations quotes laundries Melbourne-wide after measure-up — fixed price, project managed, licensed and insured, VBA registered, with AS 3740 where the laundry is a wet area. Call 0416 394 240 for a number that matches the machines, the toilet and the stack you actually have.
Next step
Measure-up, then a fixed price
Photos help us prepare. The number comes after we have seen the room. Call 0416 394 240 or use the form — licensed, VBA registered, Melbourne-wide.
