There is something of a formula to renovating an Australian home. Generally, we want more space; we want large living areas with natural light cascading in, and we want these areas to open to the garden with a deck and barbecue. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom configuration is no longer enough – en suites and at least one powder room are required.

Expectations are high. Kitchens shine out from magazine pages and bathrooms gleam with geometric tiles and glossy fittings. The process is one of designer ideas, bottomless bank accounts and houses pulled apart for months.

The good news is there are smart alternatives to get what your family needs with minimum fuss and on a sensible timeline and budget.

Often the bones of the kitchen, for example, are just fine and the cabinetry is in good shape. A good general rule for modernising the kitchen is to make everything as streamlined as possible. Stay within a limited palette and go for an uncluttered, sleek look.

An instant refresher is to replace the benchtops. More than anything, benchtops define the era of the kitchen. Several companies specialise in replacing benchtops and there are various options for replacing cabinets. If the cabinet doors are timber, sanding back and painting or staining may give you the look you want. Tiled splashbacks can be smartened up with White Knight tile paint and Grout Pen. Instantly refreshing.

Just as a smart outfit is finished perfectly with the right jewellery, new door and drawer handles add the perfect finishing touch. Add pendant lights for instant luxe.

An en suite to the main bedroom, with a walk-in wardrobe, is now expected in most homes, but with any project involving wet areas, the plumbing is the biggest problem. Traditional plumbing is expensive, disruptive, messy and time-consuming, particularly if the home is built on a cement slab.

A Saniflo system bypasses all the bother. A new en-suite can be installed anywhere in the home with minimal mess and disruption – no jackhammers machine-gunning the concrete, no grit and dust permeating the rest of the house, and the cost is far less than traditional methods.

For an en-suite, the Saniflo system comprises a toilet with a macerating or grinding unit. The shower and hand basin are also connected to this unit. The waste is pumped through a 25-millimetre pipe, usually up into the ceiling space and then along to connect with an existing sewer pipe. It is all completely unobtrusive; the toilet looks like any other on the market, with the system and pipe work being fully concealed behind the wall. The result is a completely functional new en-suite for a fraction of the price of traditional plumbing methods.

Alternatively, the Sanicompact is a new product with the macerator built into the toilet unit instead of being placed behind the unit. Saniflo managing director Matthieu Esprit says this is the most economical toilet on the market in terms of water consumption using only 1.8 litres for a half-flush and three litres for a full flush. The company is in the process of having this unit awarded a six-star energy rating.

The Saniflo system is also ideal for apartments where altering the plumbing by coring into the concrete is impossible due to expense, structural weakness or strict building regulations.

“There is virtually no limit to where you can put a bathroom or a kitchen,” Mr Esprit says. “It is very flexible; you can do a garage conversion, a granny flat, a basement room, or a powder room….

“It’s a really smart way to increase the value of your home without a big investment.”

Saniflo products are all approved for the Australian market and are installed by a licensed plumber.

www.saniflo.com.au

Is your house too similar to others on the street? When it is time to sell, will your property stand out, or will prospective buyers look at similar homes and gear their bids accordingly? It might be time to start thinking about unexpected ways to catch a buyer’s attention.

Of course there are tried and true ways to look after the value of your house. A well-maintained house will always win out over a home that has mellowed into old age. Light trumps gloom, space trumps squeezed and easy functionality will always beat poor design. A good kitchen, more than one bathroom and a powder room for visitors are sure ways to entice buyers.

But there are also unexpected ways to triumph on auction day that often get put in the too-hard basket.

1. A garden room

Adding a separate garden room is an excellent way to achieve more flexible space and the idea is charming for all sorts of reasons – has anyone ever really stopped wanting a cubby house?

People who work from home love the idea of having their office separate from the house. It feels as if they are “going to work” and breaks the day into employed time and home time. For artists and creatives, the garden room becomes a studio – a dedicated place where their creativity is not interrupted and they are not reminded of household tasks that need to be done. And, of course, the room can be separate accommodation for a teenager or grandparent.

A toilet, sink, shower and kitchenette can make it a fully functional dwelling and add greatly to the value of the home, but the addition of new plumbing can be costly and disruptive. The idea of digging a trench through the backyard to run new sewer pipes may be off-putting, but there are viable alternatives.

A Saniflo system can easily be fitted to a pre-fab garden room without any of the fuss associated with traditional plumbing – and at far less cost.

The system and pipe work can be fully concealed behind the wall without sacrificing any of the room’s aesthetic. The Saniflo unit connects to the back of the toilet, with handbasin and shower connections, so waste water is pumped back to your existing sewer pipes.

2. An outdoor kitchen

We all love a mellow summer evening and barbecue with friends. One way to have the edge when it comes to selling is with a stylish and super-functional al-fresco area that makes preparation and cooking easy. A small Saniflo unit allows a sink to be easily fitted in an outdoor kitchen.

Nick Moore, Queensland and Northern Territory sales manager for Saniflo says the company’s products are able to deal with virtually any location and situation. “It is quite common for people to want a preparation area with a functional sink for their outdoor living space, but access to plumbing is always the issue,” Mr Moore says.

An outdoor kitchen Saniflo installation as seen on Channel Ten’s ‘The Home Team’.

3. A man-cave or workshop

A man-cave, or a well-designed workshop, is attractive to a lot of buyers. Even if they don’t get around to making those art deco chairs, the workshop, with a bar in one corner and a toilet in the other, is a comfortable place to gather with mates.

“If the workshop or garage is used for car repairs, or a hobby where you get covered in sawdust, it’s good to clean up before you go into the house,” Mr Moore says.

“A toilet and handbasin, or even a shower, is a perfect addition to the workshop.”

www.saniflo.com.au

Two of the biggest restrictions are where the plumbing is located and whether the concrete floors can be touched. So how can you get the bathroom you want when your existing plumbing won’t allow it?

The owner of a fourth-floor apartment in a historic building on Flinders Lane in the heart of Melbourne recently conquered this exact problem and his results provide a unique perspective on apartment renovations.

“Our immediate problem was created because we wanted to locate the bathroom, laundry and kitchen away from the main sewer-line connection point,” apartment owner Ray Fox says. “This prevented us from running the waste pipes on gravity to the sewer because the building regulations prohibited us from coring into the concrete floor.”

As he searched for a way around this problem Mr Fox stumbled upon an alternative plumbing solution named Saniflo. A Saniflo system would remove the need to drill into the concrete by pumping all of the waste water from the new bathroom fixtures back to an existing sewer point in the apartment. This allowed Mr Fox to locate his new fixtures anywhere in the apartment without being limited by the location of his existing sewer pipes.

The Saniflo system was easily connected to the fixtures Mr Fox needed to install, and worked by macerating and pumping waste water through small 20-25 millimetre pipes back to the existing sewer line. The pipe work is concealed behind walls or in the ceiling space so the toilet and sink look no different to any others on the market.

Mr Fox says it was “problem solved”. “I’ve found Saniflo products to be highly efficient and effective,” he says. “It’s been a very reliable solution.”

Saniflo was invented in France in 1958 and has been available in Australia since 1988. More than seven million units have been sold worldwide. The concept is simple and the system can be used in virtually any situation – in homes and apartments, granny flats, old buildings and new, and is often used for commercial applications.

“There is no real restriction on where it can be used,” says Greg Waters, Saniflo’s Australian technical manager. “The waste can be pumped up into the ceiling and the pipe then runs along and down to meet up with the sewerage pipe, or it can run down and along. We’ve done new bathrooms and laundries in basements, added island benches to kitchens and fixtures to alfresco living spaces.”

Mr Waters says the Saniflo units are guaranteed for two years and generally last for about eight years. “However, there are plenty that have been around for 15-plus years,” he says.

www.saniflo.com.au