Oh, the Vanity . . . .
This piece from Lowe’s is the vanity of my dreams. Yes, I like me some fancy.
However, it’s about $2,600 more than I want to pay at this stage of my life. Actually, all of the double sink vanities were hundreds more than I wanted to spend. Wait a minute. Weren’t there two perfectly decent, albeit builder-grade, vanities that I could have just painted in that bathroom before? Yes, yes there were.
The Bear’s love language is quality time. So much so that we have to be standing next to each other while brushing our teeth. I had no idea this was an issue until we moved into this place. In our first house, there was a dual sink vanity, so the side-by-side tooth brushing ritual was an easy and naturally occurring phenomenon. Our first night after closing on Serenity, I went to the “her” side of the bathroom (a five-foot vanity with only one sink) to brush my teeth and he came and stood next to me to brush his. Gross, but the timing of our spitting became increasingly awkward night after night as we tried to gauge the other person’s need to spit as well as our own. So I moved over to the “his” side one night. And he followed me. Don’t get me wrong, I love that he even wants to be together when we groom, but the bob-and-weave-is-he-going-to-spit-now-or-can-I dance was rapidly becoming ridiculous. Hence the need for a dual sink, but more on that in a minute.
Super, super rough rendering of the bathroom layout.
If time, money, and the health of our marriage were no object, the layout would have been changed to this. . . .
This leaves the bath tub in a nook while opening up the interior of the space.
Given our limitations, however, moving plumbing around wasn’t an option. So . . . what to do? If we put a dual sink vanity in place of one of the current sink areas, that would free up the other side to be one big closet and make the space more of a room than a hallway. That was a happy thought. But what to do with the corner that was no longer a closet? Some sort of storage? Shelving? Cabinets? Then they hit me. The magic words. Corner. Electric. Fireplace.
Final layout. Still awkwardly shaped, but with a fireplace.
There were no neutral reactions when I told people about the fireplace idea. It was either some variant of, “Why would you do that?!” or “That is the most awesome idea EVER!!!!!”
With the layout settled, it was time to solve the vanity equation. Tiny budget plus the need for two sinks equals . . . . two single vanities combined to form one.
I found one of these guys on clearance at Lowes for $37 (originally $150 – I assume it must have been a floor model) and the other one went on sale for $120 the next week. Two for basically the price of one? Sold! Now, to make them look like they belong together . . .
Step 1: wrap the visible parts with MDF trim for a built in effect.
Step 2: make a little shelf to sit between them to create the illusion that it was all one piece.
Step 3: glue the bottom piece in place (sorry, no pic because this was not exciting at all).
Step 4: cut an upper shelf and nail that in place (also no pic because it was also boring).
Step 5: paint everything to blend in with the vanity cabinets.
Step 6: find a hamper to go in the space between the shelves and cover up the plumbing. 🙂 Some day down the road, I would like to hire someone to redo the plumbing behind the wall (plumbing is my nemesis), but for now, this is what we have.
Oh, yeah, and install a counter top, sinks, and faucets to tie it all together. I chose to tile this counter top because that allowed me to customize the size, as well as tie the counter top surface in with the deck of the tub and the bullnose around the shower. Also, as far as materials go, it doesn’t get much cheaper than plywood and tile.
Let’s remember where we started, shall we?