Bathroom renovation in Luxembourg, all in one from design to finish

Bathroom renovation in Luxembourg: what turnkey actually covers

A bathroom renovation in Luxembourg means eight trades working in five square metres: strip-out and waste removal, new supply and drainage runs, waterproofing, underfloor heating, tiling or a seamless finish, electrics and lighting, ventilation, then the vanity unit, the brassware and the sealant. One contract, one site manager, one invoice.

The Beggen workshop builds the vanity unit to measure, which is the only way to use an awkward 78 cm recess or work around a badly placed window sill instead of dropping in a standard carcass that leaves six centimetres of dead space on either side.

Four of the projects published in our case studies include bathrooms: the two bathrooms in the 90 m² Limpertsberg apartment, delivered in six weeks; three bathrooms in Sandweiler; the complete bathroom and kitchen renovation in Merl, at 80 m² per apartment; and one bathroom per bedroom across the 380 m² house in Walferdange.

Two, five or eight square metres: what genuinely fits in a bathroom

In a small bathroom the geometry decides before the budget does. Under four square metres you choose between a walk-in shower and a bath. Between four and six, a 90 × 120 shower, a wall-hung WC and an 80 cm vanity fit without the door swinging into the basin. Above six, a double basin and a bath become a matter of taste again.

Three decisions buy real centimetres: a wall-hung WC, whose concealed frame takes less depth than a floor-standing pan with its cistern; a sliding door, or one hung to open outwards, which gives back the floor area the leaf was sweeping; and a level-access shower, which removes the tray upstand.

What does not move for free is the drainage. A basin or a towel radiator changes wall without difficulty, a WC far less so: more than a metre from the existing stack you need either enough depth under the floor to hold the fall, or a macerator. That is settled at survey stage, before demolition.

Waterproofing, the hidden key to a durable bathroom

Under the tiles of a level-access shower sits a waterproofing system, liquid-applied or matting, carried up the walls, with reinforcing tape in the corners and collars around every pipe penetration. It stops water tracking into the screed, and it is the one item that cannot be put right later without lifting the tiling.

The fall is formed in the substrate, between 1 and 2 %, towards a linear drain or an ultra-flat tray. Too little and water sits; too much and you feel it underfoot. The choice depends mostly on the depth available beneath the finish: in an older apartment with a timber floor the centimetres a channel drain needs are not always there, and an ultra-flat tray is what solves it.

Waterproofing that is missing, or stopped too low behind a shower screen, does not show in the first year. When it does, putting it right takes out the tiling, the partition and often the ceiling of the flat below. So the item appears on the quote with its quantity even though nobody will ever look at it. The same applies to extraction: without mechanical ventilation the moisture goes back into the grout, the paint and the cabinetry.

Tile, terrazzo, polished concrete: what survives in a bathroom

Large-format porcelain remains the default, for a practical reason: fewer grout lines to clean. In exchange it demands a flat substrate, so a levelling compound, and careful cutting at the corners, because in a small room every cut is visible.

Terrazzo covers two products people routinely confuse. True terrazzo, poured or as a ground slab, is porous and needs sealing and ongoing maintenance. Porcelain with a terrazzo pattern gives the same look without that commitment: at a metre's distance the difference in appearance is slight, the difference in upkeep is not.

Polished concrete and microcement work in a wet room on two conditions: a stable substrate, and a polyurethane-type topcoat across the whole exposed surface. Over a sound screed they hold up very well; over a timber floor that moves they eventually crack.

Which answers the most common question: outside the shower zone, sound, well-bonded tiling can be overlaid, and that saves the strip-out and the skip. The moment the shower is in scope, it cannot, because the waterproofing sits underneath.

The bathroom renovation sequence and what actually delays it

The order never changes: strip-out and waste removal, plumbing and electrical first fix, partitions and substrates, waterproofing and its drying time, screed and underfloor heating, tiling, grouting, vanity and brassware, sealants, clean and handover. Four to eight weeks depending on scope and on how many wet rooms are involved.

What delays a bathroom is procurement far more than labour. Tiles, the made-to-measure vanity and the brassware are ordered at signature, and one discontinued model pushes the programme back by weeks. Material selection therefore belongs in the quoting phase, not after demolition.

In an apartment there is an administrative layer on top: managing-agent consent, booking the lift, protecting the stairwells, removing rubble. And one point that is not negotiable: work on a soil stack or a riser serving other flats is not decided unilaterally. If this is the only bathroom in the home, the interim arrangement is settled at quote stage.

3 % housing VAT, long-term care insurance and bathroom adaptation grants

A bathroom refit that changes neither the load-bearing structure, nor the façade, nor the roof generally needs no autorisation de bâtir, the Luxembourg building permit, and it is precisely the case in which using an architect is not compulsory. As soon as a load-bearing wall is altered or an opening is created in the façade, the application goes through the local commune.

On a principal residence completed at least ten years ago, the works may qualify for the 3 % housing VAT rate instead of 17 %, capped at €50,000 of VAT per dwelling. Authorisation from the AED must be requested before work starts; requested afterwards, it follows a different procedure and a different timescale.

Klimabonus, by contrast, does not cover a bathroom refit as such: the scheme addresses energy advice, sustainable insulation materials, LENOZ certification, heat pumps and photovoltaics. If the project touches heating or insulation, that portion may qualify, and it is verified with Klima-Agence before the works are committed.

Two schemes do target bathrooms directly: long-term care insurance (assurance dépendance), which funds adaptation works and names a step-free shower explicitly, and the special-adaptation grant, which covers the first installation of special equipment in the bathroom and WC. They are not claimed at the same point in the project, one before the first hammer blow and the other after the invoice. The caps and deadlines are set out in the questions below, and we check the point at quote stage.