Waterline The bathroom company that starts behind the tiles.
Waterline has renovated bathrooms across the Brisbane inner suburbs since 2014: full renovations, ensuites, walk-in shower conversions and accessibility upgrades, all designed to a fixed price and waterproofed by licensed hands.
Bathrooms are the most-renovated and worst-renovated rooms in Australia. The failure is almost never the tiles you can see, it is the membrane you cannot: uncertified waterproofing laid in an afternoon under a pretty renovation, leaking into the frame within a few years. By the time the ceiling below stains, the cheap quote has become the most expensive one in the suburb.
Waterline started in 2014 when a designer and a builder-waterproofer, Elena and Joel Marsh, kept meeting the same homeowner: burnt once by a photo-shoot renovation, now wanting it done properly. They built the company around the unglamorous part, the measured design, the certified membrane, the paperwork, and let the beautiful rooms follow from there.
Renovate to the waterproofing standard and the photo shoot takes care of itself.
Today the crew covers full bathroom renovations, ensuite renovations and additions, walk-in shower conversions, accessibility and ageing-in-place upgrades, certified waterproofing, tiling, and powder rooms and laundries across the Brisbane inner suburbs, with no travel surcharge within 15km of Paddington.
Three things we will not compromise on.
The itemised page vs the text-message price.
The membrane is the job
Everything a bathroom is praised for sits on top of the waterproofing. Ours is laid by a licensed waterproofer, inspected, certified and warranted for ten years, because that is the part you cannot fix later without starting again.
Fixed means fixed
The proposal you sign is itemised line by line and the number does not drift. Scope changes and genuinely hidden damage are priced and signed before work continues, never smuggled onto the final invoice.
Honest beats bigger
If a refresh will do, we say refresh. If your ensuite idea dies at the drainage, we say so before you spend on design. The cheapest day to hear the truth about a bathroom is the first one.
Certificates, not promises
Waterproofing certificate, plumbing and electrical compliance, product warranties registered: the handover pack is paperwork you can show an insurer or a buyer, not a handshake.
Design-led and certified is not the cheapest way.
And we would rather tell you that on this page than on an invoice.
We are the right fit if you want the bathroom designed before it is priced, the price fixed before it is demolished, and the waterproofing certified before it is tiled. We are the wrong fit if you are chasing the lowest number this week: there will always be someone cheaper, and the difference is usually hiding under the tiles.
Insured, ticketed, and happy to prove it.
Insurance
Public liability to $20M
Certificate of currency available before we start.
Licence
QBCC licensed builder & waterproofer
Licence 15 000 002 on every contract, as Queensland law requires.
Guarantee
10-year waterproofing & workmanship warranty
In writing, with exclusions named.
Method
QBCC licensed
Builder, low rise + licensed waterproofing
Method
HIA member
Kitchens & bathrooms
The QBCC licence is what makes the contract enforceable and the work insurable: in Queensland, bathroom work over $3,300 requires it, and wet-area waterproofing must be done by a licensed waterproofer. Waterline Bathrooms & Renovations is a composite demonstration site, so these identifiers are illustrative; on a live build they are the real, verifiable credentials.
Judged by the people who write the standards.
Industry recognition for bathroom work, from the bodies that certify the trade.
HIA Queensland · 2025
Bathroom Project Winner
Renovation under $40,000, inner-Brisbane wet-area detailing.
Master Builders QLD · 2024
Finalist, Best Bathroom
South East Queensland housing and construction awards.
HIA Australian Bathroom · 2023
Accessible Design, Highly Commended
Recognised for a level-entry wet-room renovation.
Composite demo: award placings are illustrative.
A small crew, not a call centre.
Elena Marsh
Designer & co-owner
Twelve years designing bathrooms, the last eight across inner Brisbane. Runs every consult personally, and designs to the budget you actually said, not the one that suits the quote.
“A bathroom fails behind the tiles years before it fails in front of them. So we win it behind the tiles.”
Joel Marsh
Builder & licensed waterproofer, co-owner
QBCC-licensed builder and waterproofer. Runs every strip-out and lays every membrane himself, which is why the waterproofing warranty is ten years and not one.
What happens from first call to walk-through.
Consult & measure
At your place. We measure the room, check the substrate and drainage, and talk budget honestly.
Design & fixed price
A drawn design with every fixture placed and a fixed, itemised proposal. You sign the scope, not a sketch.
Strip out, waterproof, certify
Demolition, new rough-in, screeds with proper falls, then certified waterproofing, inspected before a tile goes down.
Tile, fit off & hand over
Tiling, fixtures and glass installed, site cleaned, and a handover pack with every certificate and warranty.
Read before you get quotes
Meet us at your place, and bring the hard budget question.
Tell us about your bathroom. We measure, talk budget honestly, and design to a fixed, itemised price before a single tile is lifted.