Listen friends, we had a bathroom stuck in the 90's. Anybody have one of those? It was orange, yellow, beat up, and begging for a little refresh.
Here is how our little space looked before.
We wanted a new fresh space but only wanted to spend about $1000 max. This our half bathroom off the kitchen. It is also our laundry room. It needs to be functional and beautiful.
I love white, industrial, farmhouse spaces. So immediately went to work researching all our options within our budget. Our space isn't large , 6 x 9, but I was surprised to learn that the biggest expense would be a new vanity and sink.
I toyed with painting our old vanity. But years of little people and countless friends over, this vanity was toast. He needed to go.
I found this vanity tutorial on Pinterest. It is fabulous. The instructions are straight forward and easy to follow. I would use these plans again and again.
We bought all our lumber for around $100, purchased a sink at Ikea for $85 with the Dalskar Faucet for $70. So for a little under $260, we had a brand new vanity. Budget miracle.
We modified things just a bit so I am going to let Brad take over and tell you how we built the vanity.
Brad here...otherwise known as Melissa Voigt's craftsman/guinea pig. We made some small modifications and some plumbing hacks to make this new vanity work.
1st modification - Most of the Voigt's are not small people, I happen to be 6'4". I am often frustrated by countertops feeling an inch or two shorter than they should be. (I mean average people, am I right?) Instead of cutting the 4x4 cedar legs to 29 1/4", I cut our legs to 32". As I mentioned, even our littles are a bigger than normal because the pedestal sink is 5 1/2" tall and I didn't want anyone to struggle to wash their hands after efficiently using the facilities. (Pure sarcasm)
2nd Modification - To lower the cost of the top I jointed two 10" boards using TiteBond III wood glue and pocket hole screws using my Kreg Jig. We also centered the sink instead of placing it on the left of the vanity. Our vanity is up against the wall nearest the door so it didn't make sense to elbow the wall while washing hands.
3rd Modification - The wall behind the vanity has the garage on the other side. This means instead of our hot and cold water pipes coming from the wall, they come from the floor. I wish I would have recognized this prior to cutting all the slats, staining them, and assembling them. The solution was simple though, I just removed two slats to make space for the pipes to rise from the floor. Of course Melissa Voigt already had an idea for a wire basket to rest on the slats so removing two of them didn't have an impact on the final look. Keep in mind when you go to install the sink, Ikea provides you with a cut out template in order for the sink to drop into the top of the vanity. If you have also used pocket hole screws to joint the top, be sure to remove any screws that would be in the way of your cut. Finally, I used a silicon adhesive that was water resistant to seal the sink to the top of the vanity. The Ikea sink has an obvious ring on the bottom to apply the adhesive.
Ikea Plumbing hack - The faucet came with hot and cold extensions but guess what? They didn't reach far enough to connect the lines from the floor. I purchased at Lowe's two 12" Brasscraft Braided PVC Faucet Supply lines. On one end I was able to remove the nut so the supply line extensions would connect to both the shut off valve at the bottom and connect to the nut at the end of the lines provided by Ikea. The lines provided from Ikea were made for more clearance then where the slates are located. In order to make everything fit between the slats and the sink I had to take a couple of inches of the L shaped pipe that dumps everything into the pipe in the wall and connects to the trap.
We used Minwax interior stain in Red Mahogany. As you can see, we put a very light coat of stain on this. We put it on and wiped it off. I wanted a more rustic, not polished look. On the top we used three coats of a clear polyurethane with a line sanding of 320 grit in between the coats once they had dried. After all, this bathroom is used by kids A LOT!
I found this vintage wire basket at an antique mall a few years ago. It is perfect for holding all our bathroom needs. I have some extra toilet paper, towels, and brushes.
I am IN LOVE with this vanity. It was just the look I wanted for an amazing price. It is really hard to find a quality vanity and sink for $260. There are so many ways you could change and customize this vanity for your space. The options are endless! Happy building!
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