I have undertaken what is likely to be an ambitious task for me--designing and building a double-sink vanity for our new bathroom. My wife and I are renovating our 2,000 sq ft Cape-style house, and the bathroom is part of a new master bedroom suite (bedroom/bath/walk-in closet). The vanity will go at one end of the bathroom, flush against 3 walls (see sketch of bathroom).bathroom.jpg The new bathroom is 5' 10" x 10' (not counting the shower), so the vanity will be 70" x 22." The bathroom will have elements of modern style mixed with traditional (I think the designers call this transitional?). The floor and shower will be tiled with a medium travertine stone (the color is hard to describe--off white, tan, some brown/reddish/orange streaks). The floor will have a 2" border of a greenish stone--seagrass green is the color our tile place calls it--and that stone will also be used for the vanity top and backsplash. The walls will be painted a light color, and my wife, who is a great decorative painter, will likely do a Venetian plaster finish.
I came up with the rough design after looking at a bunch of vanities in stores and on websites. The tricky part was having the sinks line up with elements of the vanity, and having them be a reasonable distance apart, while including features that we thought would be nice--drawers, cabinets, and cubbies (though we are not wedded to the latter). Then again, it may not be crucial to line up the sinks, though that seemed to be the case on most things I saw. As you can see, I've drawn the drawers and cabinet doors in a Shaker style--it was easier to draw, but we also like that style. I've also drawn this as a frameless design, mostly because it was easier to sketch at first, but I'm open to advice on whether to use a face frame and if so, whether to do inset doors/draws. I suspect the latter will be harder. The sinks will be 18" x 12" and will sit directly above the cabinets, which are 18" wide. As a beginner, I have lots of questions. I know many of these boil down to personal preference, but I suspect that some style issues can have a big impact on how this gets built and how hard it will be. So here goes:
vanity3.jpg
Wood/color. We initially thought cherry would be nice but it just looked like too much orange given our choice of stone. We prefer something darker. Walnut? Mahogany? Are some easier to work with than others? I plan to use solid wood for the rails/stiles/drawerfronts and veneered plywood for the rest of the casework.
Frameless vs faceframe. I've read about pros and cons here, but was wondering about it for this specific design. Would it look too busy with a faceframe?
Cubbies vs drawers for the middle section. We thought it would add a nice element to have cubbies, since we'd have drawers on the two sides. We thought we'd put rolled up or folded towels, or perhaps two wicker baskets in the larger cubbies.
Rails/stiles. Any advise as to widths? Do you make the these wider for bigger elements like the cabinet. As I drew it, they are 1.5" for the drawers and 2" for the cabinets. I've seen pieces in which there is a mix of plain drawer faces for smaller drawers, with rail/stile used for the bigger ones. Is it better to stick to be consistent and have all rail/stile?
Dimensions. Unless I don't center the sinks above the two cabinets, I'd like to keep the center of these cabinets where they are--our two medicine cabinets will line up with them and they're spaces are already roughed out. So I probably need to keep the widths close to what they are. The two top drawers at the ends will not have anything in their way so can be actual drawers. Actually, I just realized that our 18" wide sinks need a rough width of 20.25" at the very top, so I may have to fiddle with those drawers. But I'm not wedded to the hieghts of drawers/cabinets--those dimensions just sort of fell out. I haven't left any room on top for anything, and I just put in a 4' space for a kickplate. I also realize that I drew this as 36" but didn't account for the counter top, so I may need to shave off another inch somewhere.
Kickplate/legs/apron. We thought it would be nice to add some sort of 'feature' to the bottom to give it more of a furniture feel rather than a kitchen cabinet look. I've seen some semi-custom cabinets that have legs and an apron, even though the entire piece is flush with the floor. But I'm not sure how to design that and just sketched something rough there.
Although I've drawn pulls rather than knobs for the drawers and cabinets, we haven't gotten that far detail-wise. That's all I can think of now but that should get us started. Sorry for the long post and please realize that I am just a beginner so could use all the help I can get. And if you really want to chuckle, I should mention that I'm very busy at work AND that we are expecting our first child in...5 weeks!
--Rob
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Originally Posted by Pam Niedermayer
