Materials: Bekvam Kitchen Cart (birch)
Description: So my wife needed a nest to raise our kids and we decided to head to the last place on earth we thought we would be living in. Oshawa, Canada.
Bought a 50's bungalow and before you know it, the place started to fall apart. The first night in the house for example, the tiles surrounding the tub started popping off the walls after the shower was used.
That was 2 years ago, and recently the sink's p-drain corroded and fell apart, forcing the inevitable renovation.
Anyways, I tried to keep the bathroom reno budget low while still making it look nice and contemporary.
For the vanity area I wanted a nice but cheap solution, but was looking at a minimum of $200 cdn for something really cheap, ugly and CHEAP.
Thankfully, not too long ago I discovered this blog, and it inspired me.
I grabbed a bekvam kitchen cart because it seemed very sturdy in the show room and appears to be made of solid pine and was a good size for what I needed. I cut the longer legs to match the height of the legs that the castors would have been mounted to. (I'll use them later for something else.) With the pedestal sink on top, it works out to a pretty standard height for a vanity.
For the stain I just grabbed one of those cans of black stain lying around at IKEA which my wife applied to the loose parts(smells like deep fryer oil btw).
After it was dry, I assembled it and cut a hole in the table top for the sink drain and mounted the sink to the top with bath and kitchen silicone. I also needed to cut the middle top out of the top shelf to make room for the drain. This was only necessary though, I think, because I decided to not replace the copper pipe in the wall, which was for an older lower vanity.
I have debated screwing it to the floor, for added stability, but the weight of the "vanity" seems to be enough.
~ Todd McCullough, Oshawa, Canada
Absolutely love this! I have a tiny, tiny bathroom and have been looking for something other than the traditional vanity/sink combo and this would be perfect. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWow that is such a transformation, it looks great!
ReplyDelete@ peg, Cheers! My bathroom is tiny too, so it worked out well. In the end, it was the same price as a cheap vanity, but much more unique and durable.
ReplyDelete@ Hannah, Thanks. I originally said it would be done in 2 weeks. A month and a half later though, between commuting to work and working on the bathroom, I was getting pretty frayed at the edges. I was shocked with the final outcome.
Do you have a link to the sink that you used?
ReplyDeleteVery nice work! The wainscoting is amazing with the tile, I'm going to steal your idea.
ReplyDelete@ Alex. I'm not sure where you could buy it. I grabbed this one at Rona here in Canada and it was the last one they had and there wasn't even a price marked. So I ended up getting it for $80 (roughly) But it was a foremost sink.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foremostgroups.com/content/bath/sinks/vessels/13-0029-w
this is similar - except for the hole that it would have for the faucet and spout. I'm not sure they make it anymore. It may not come pre-drilled. We also got a claw foot that they make and it would have needed me to drill the holes if i had mounted the faucet onto it directly.
@ Anonymous - I'd be lying to you if I said it was our design idea for the wainscoting and checkered tile. We ripped the idea from colin and justin.
http://www.colinandjustin.tv/viewinterior.php?id=1
That´s so great! We had the exact same idea when we had to redo our bathroom a few years ago! Except for the black stain...we used boat paint. Works great even with our splish-splash toddler daughter ;-) Oh and our bathroom is very small too.
ReplyDelete@ Liz
ReplyDeleteThere's no new ideas out there, are there? :)
That was the idea I needed! Thank you so much! Great!
ReplyDeletethanks. I can imagine it but hubby can't. Showing him the picture & explanation did the trick. Now he's on board. It is difficult to find things for small bathrooms. I wonder why our local Ikea doesn't do sample rooms using these ideas.
ReplyDelete