Bath Wainscot and Vanity Project

[John TenEyck]

Here is a SketchUp model of some wainscot and vanity I designed and built for a half bath.



The room is about 4-1/2' wide and 5-1/2' deep. I built the wainscot sections in my shop from hard maple and maple plywood for the panels. The vanity was built in the same style. I finished everything with BIN pigmented shellac primer followed by BM's Advance paint. This was the first time I've used Advance and I really like it other than it takes a long time to get hard.

I installed the wainscot panels by screwing them to the studs only at the very top and bottom where the trim and baseboard would hide the screws, leaving just a few nail holes to fill on the cap molding and baseboard.

Good photographs were hard to get but these should give you an idea of how it turned out.







You may notice that I changed the design of the molding around the vanity. I decided that the original design would be a trip hazard with the vanity being so close to the toilet, so I got rid of the plinth blocks and wrapped the baseboard under the toe kick. It doesn't look quite as good, but it's safer.

Somehow I didn't build a panel for the short wall to the right of the door. The owner thought he told me he wanted one, but I don't recall it. I'll make him one sometime this Winter, but in the meantime I needed to cover a gap at the bottom of the wall where he had removed some old baseboard. I held a piece of the new baseboard up to the wall and it didn't cover his new tile. Hmmm. OK, how about this, for now?



Once he paints the wall it should look OK. The "shoe" molding is just a piece of the cap molding that I ripped off.

John

[Patrick McCarthy]

John, interesting thought on the potential trip hazard due to limited space. Just curious if it would have been possible space wise to rotate sink 90 degrees clockwise?

i always enjoy yours posts and your projects, so thank you again. Patrick

[Jay Jolliffe]

Nice job with a small space.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Pat. The old vanity actually was 90 degrees clockwise and I tried to convince the owner the new one should be that way, too. I even made a drawing of it orientated that way. He was steadfast that he wanted it the way you see it. OK.

John

[Mel Fulks]

Interesting about that sink. I found its orientation rather strange,too. Did not comment just because I figured it was not your doing. One has to have earned a good solid reputation for the critics to blame the client! Think it would have been nice to replace the window stool with that rail topping the panels.

[Jim Becker]

Your work is outstanding. Great job!

I, too, was wondering about the orientation. With the vanity in the corner, I would have rotated it for sure. Alternatively, I would have found a way to move it down the wall "toward the photographer" so someone using the sink wouldn't have to deal with the toilet in close quarters. Our powder room is setup that way...4'x4' space, toilet in the same location as your photo with the sink centered on the wall to the left of the toilet (to the right if you're sitting... )

[Jon Nuckles]

Really nice work and looks like an excellent job on the finish. All you can do is offer options and advice; clients get to make their own choices. I wonder how the homeowner will feel about his design choice after using it for a while.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Jim, I think moving it towards the photographer would block the door swing, as the 2nd photo shows the hinges on that wall.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

I think the best option would have been to leave the sink on the back wall. Those holes in the floor along the left wall are where we removed the supply pipes to a radiator, which has to be relocated closer to the door now. Pulling the cabinet closer to the door wasn't really an option unless the radiator got moved to the opposite wall. We actually did discuss that option but he didn't like the idea of a "dead zone" in the corner.

The toilet supply pipe was another "mistake", IMO. It should have been located to the right of the toilet. Where it is now you can't open the drawer completely!

But as said, all you can do is offer your advise - and do what the customer wants. I don't think it will matter much. It's a half bath and I doubt it actually gets used very much. I hope to do some more work for him next year. If so, I'll get a chance to see the room after it's all done and find out whether or not he regrets where the sink is.

John

[George Bokros]

Customer is always right. It will be interesting to see how the customer feels a few months of living with his decision.

[John TenEyck]

I had to make a small piece of trim wood for the owner for another project he's working on, so I got a chance to see where he's at with the half bath. Thankfully, he changed the wall color; I hated that blue but of course didn't say so.



He did a nice job feathering joint compound onto the walls and eliminating the gaps between the cap molding and wall. One more coat of paint on the walls and cap molding and it should look really nice. Now that the toilet is in place I was able to "try out" the sink. You actually can step between the toilet and sink w/o undue trouble. Still looks goofy to me, but it's not in my house. More importantly, he's happy!

John

[James Pallas]

Nice work John. True the customer should get what they want. One thing I noticed, with the lav in the position it is you can get in to operate the window easier.
Jim