i needed a new vanity for an upstairs room and had just enough left over lumber and good deals on half-*ssed lumber from the local small mill i buy from to get around to one over the past few weeks, so this is the progress/plan...
1) had a few 2x6 cypress/longleaf pine boards left over from building windows and doors awhile back, and since they have similar colors/grain patterns they mix ok. so the first pic is the cabinet shell. about 2/3 of the frame is cypress, about 1/3 what i could get from the pine boards, skipping the knots and sap streaks. the boxes are just some fir the local lumberyard had on sale.
2) with doors/drawers. the drawers were also taken out of one of the cypress 2xs, had to resaw them in half and use 1/2 thick walls, but it worked out ok. sliding dovetail in each corner with the ends sticking out on the front mortised into the face frames, which were taken from the best parts of the pine boards. i didn't have anything wide enough left for the panels, so i just got some of that 3/4 butcherblock sheet stuff they sell at the borg, it's basically factory glued 1x3s sold in a 3x4 or 3x5 foot sheet, don't remember the exact size. but if you pick your cuts they don't look too bad as door panels, since they're yellow pine as well they match up ok with the rest. i did use pre-made hinges for the sink trays, but the rest are just on waxed wooden slides. the doors are on soss hinges so that they recess into the frame. i figured since we're using cheaper lumber we could at least make the fit a bit better, so decided to recess all the doors/drawers into the frame.
3) the mirror is salvaged from an old 1/4" original mirror i had in the house that the previous owners had just stuck to a wall, and then a picture frame, and then another wall. after scraping the 3 different layers of liquid nails from it that had been used to hold it to its previous frames and cutting a foot and a half or so from one end, i built a new frame for it outta the same leftover pine 2xs we were using for the rest, with properly mortised corners and a proper glass rabbet for it to sit in.
until the top is done, as you can see, it does an decent job of keeping small tools and loose plaster off of the floor.
4) as for the top, i knew i wanted a wooden top that was darker than the rest, but hadn't made up my mind until i found some lower grade walnut from a local mill i deal with here. had some knots and splits in it, so i paid him a bit less than his normal price for it, and decided to make a herringbone pattern for the top, as shown in the 3rd pic (sketchup plan). while it does save a bit of money this way in the ability to use lesser lumber, it doesn't save much time. i count ~180 boards the way i have it laid out, all of which need tongue/grooved. i got them all cut to width and length today. there they are stacked on my jointer. and the last pic is the nice pile i managed to amass on my table saw while cutting them to final dimension.
tomorrow, a nice long day of cutting tongues and grooves, fun
not sure how the sink placement will go, have a sink coming but haven't placed it yet to see if i'll just be able to cut the hole, or if i'll have to divide the center out into a different section without the pattern. we'll see.
Reply With Quote
