Bathroom Renovations: The Vanity

 When we decided to buy this house, we knew that if we were going to stay here for more than a few years the upstairs layout of one bathroom would have to change eventually.  I don't know if you've looked into adding a bathroom lately, but you can spend an absolute fortune before you even realize what has happened-- which would be fun, but unfortunately isn't an option at the moment.

In order to keep our costs down and make it conceivably within our budget, we had our contractor give us an estimate for "roughing in" the two bathrooms, which we created using the existing room and two poorly used closets.  (More on this later!)  This means we were in charge of hunting down our own fixtures, mirrors, toilet, vanity-- everything beyond installing the actual electric outlets, walls and plumbing.  A fun, money saving challenge!

We started looking for vanities and desperately hoped to find something affordable with double sinks.  I can't tell you how many times we have tried to brush our teeth at the same time, struggling for space at the counter, so two just seems like the ultimate luxury for us.  Obsessing over double sinks with cool, smooth carrera marble tops did me no good, since even after lots of research I had to cross them off the list.  

But, after Jady and I had already looked and looked, we ran across this vanity in Costco.  Not exactly my favorite look, but it has plenty of good storage, the size works for our space, and the solid granite countertop isn't too busy or dark when paired with simple decor.  And it was an amazing deal!

The dark stain and brown hardware are fine, but definitely not the look I had envisioned for our bathroom.  But these are things easy to fix with a little effort!  First, I removed the hardware, sanded the  wood lightly to rough up the surface some and applied a coat of primer.

For new hardware, I love Martha Stewart's line of cabinet pulls and knobs available at Home Depot, and I'm obsessed with the ones I picked for this project, which match our chrome faucets.

Martha Stewart Living

And here is the finished product.  I'm so happy with how it looks painted white, and it's as fresh and clean as I had hoped it would feel.   We obviously have a ways to go before we are completely done with the whole room (ignore the propped up mirror and lack of baseboards:)), but we now have the ultimate luxury-- and don't have to fight over the sink anymore!

xo

Liza