Renovating a Bathroom in Mallorca While You Live Abroad
Key takeaways
- Every decision is made before the work starts, in writing, from samples and drawings.
- Photographs at the stages you cannot see afterwards: strip-out, first fix, the membrane.
- One point of contact, an agreed way to reach you when something is found, and a margin before your arrival.
- Companies that work for absent owners exist; say so in the brief and the request goes to them.
Most of the people who use this site are not on the island when the work happens. That is not a problem to be worked around; it is the normal way a bathroom in a second home gets renovated, and the companies that do it well have a way of working built for it. This is that way of working, from the owner’s side.
Decide everything first
A renovation you can walk into every evening tolerates decisions made on the day. One you cannot does not. The layout, the surfaces, the fixtures, the furniture, the glass, the grout colour and the height of the niche are all chosen and confirmed before the strip-out, from samples on a board, a drawing and a written specification. It reads as bureaucracy and is the opposite: it is what stops a phone call about a tile you cannot see.
What to ask a company to do
- Survey the room and send a drawing and a written specification
- Confirm every product by name before ordering, with lead times
- Photograph the strip-out, the first fix and the waterproofing membrane before the tiles
- Report on an agreed rhythm, through one person
- Say in advance how a surprise under the floor reaches you, and how fast a decision is needed
- Hand the house back dry, sealed, with the water on and a snagging visit booked for after you have used it
Timing
The work happens in the months the house is empty and is planned backwards from the date you arrive: materials by sea, the fitting, the curing, a snagging visit, and a week in hand. The timeline article sets out the stages; the point here is that the empty house is the asset, and a renovation planned for it finishes before the season rather than during it.
Keys, access and neighbours
Somebody lets the trades in – the company, a key holder, a property manager – and somebody is the neighbour who hears the drill. In a block the community has hours and rules; in a village the lane has a delivery problem. Agree who holds the keys and who speaks to the building before the first day, and the work is invisible from where you are.
The brief
Say in the request that you are abroad, when you are on the island, and how you prefer to be reached. The request goes to companies that work for absent owners, and the first thing they will do is send you the survey. The second-home owners page is the short version of all of this.
Do I need to be there for the survey?
It helps and it is not essential: a plan and photographs, or a visit by somebody you trust, do most of it. For the work itself, no.
What if something goes wrong while I am away?
Something small usually does – a pipe where the drawing said there was none, a cracked slab – and the question is how it reaches you and how fast. Agree that before the work starts, and ask the company how it handled the last one.
Can the house be let during the work?
Not the bathroom being renovated, and rarely the house around it. Most owners give the work a stretch of the empty season and let the finished house afterwards.
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