At the heart of most bathroom renovations is one great piece of furniture: the vanity.
“The vanity can make or break the design of the bathroom,” said Hema Persad, the founder of Los Angeles-based interior design firm Sagrada Studio. “It takes up a lot of square footage, no matter how big or small the bathroom is, so you have to think about it really carefully.”
There are two key points to consider: how to maximize storage space, and how to bolster the design vision for the room.
“The vanity should always meet a functional need,” said Gabriela Gargano, the founder of New York-based interior design firm Grisoro Studio. “But how bold or discreet it is really depends on the design goal for the space.”
The answer to those questions can lead to vastly different designs, from expansive built-in cabinetry to compact wall-mounted units. Here are some of the designs that Ms. Persad, Ms. Gargano and others have implemented to make bathrooms look, and function, their best.
Take Stock of Requirements
At Ten Plus Three, a design firm with offices in Dallas and Monterrey, Mexico, every vanity design begins with an assessment of how a homeowner will use it, said Gonzalo Bueno, a partner at the firm.
“Some of our clients have simple bathroom products, while others have not-so-simple skin care products and tall bottles they need access to,” Mr. Bueno said. Some people want a large cabinet with a door, so they can hide a wastebasket inside, he said, while others desire drawers with integrated power outlets for hair dryers or toothbrushes.
A vanity in a powder room or guest bathroom, on the other hand, might not require so much storage.
Go Wall to Wall
One of the best ways to maximize vanity storage space, even in a small bathroom, is to build a custom cabinet that stretches from one wall to another.
For a bathroom she designed in Manhattan, Ms. Gargano introduced a built-in white oak vanity with big drawers topped by a Calacatta Nero marble counter that completely filled a niche, which is also lined in white oak. “It creates a very immersive feeling,” she said.
In a small bathroom Ms. Persad designed, she ran a shallow cabinet right across the end wall of the room to add significant storage space. Because there was no space for doors to swing open or drawers to pull out, she chose sliding doors finished in cane, which were made by Yeehaw Woodworks.
“We had to do those sliding doors because there was nowhere else to put the toilet,” Ms. Persad said. In such tiny confines, she added, “custom is often the way to go,” because prefabricated vanities are rarely a perfect fit.
In a more spacious bathroom, a custom vanity can also help maximize storage space. In a bathroom that Aimee Meisgeier of Seattle-based AM Interior Design conceived, she installed a generous double vanity book-ended by matching storage cabinets that extend from floor to ceiling.
“There was a huge run of open wall,” Ms. Meisgeier said. “So those are built-in linen cabinets that hold pool towels, bathroom towels and all the necessary day-to-day things.”
Hang It Off the Wall
One potential downside to a vanity that runs wall to wall is that it can eat up a lot of floor space and look visually heavy in the room. A solution is to use a wall-mounted vanity that has no legs or base.
“When an item doesn’t touch the floor, it takes up less visual space, even though the depth and width of the cabinet might be exactly the same,” Ms. Gargano said, who often prefers wall-mounted vanities in compact urban bathrooms.
Add a Shelf
Another way to increase storage space is to install a low shelf, either below a wall-mounted vanity, or on the bottom of a vanity that runs to the floor.
Ms. Meisgeier has built open shelves into vanities for guest bathrooms as a place to store towels or for guests to store dopp kits. In a powder room she designed with a long wall-mounted stone vanity, she added just a short walnut shelf below it. “That’s for a basket where the toilet paper goes,” she said.
Choose a Prefabricated Unit
In bathrooms that have straightforward dimensions and a little more breathing room, a prefabricated vanity can work nearly as well as a custom one. In a bathroom Ms. Persad designed where she had to put the vanity between a shower and a toilet, she found an ideally sized free-standing model from West Elm.
“We wanted something that looked midcentury, and West Elm happened to have one that fit the footprint and the style we needed,” Ms. Persad said. “That was a great cost savings.”
In another bathroom, she used a prefabricated wall-mounted vanity. “It had to be narrow enough that the door could still open,” she said. She replaced the hardware on the unit’s single storage drawer with one long bar pull, which provides a place to hang a towel.
Repurpose an Antique
A cabinet or chest doesn’t have to be labeled as a bathroom vanity to function as one. Some designers repurpose antique chests of drawers to make one-of-a-kind vanities.
Aileen Warren and Kiley Jackson, the founders of Jackson Warren Interiors, a firm with offices in Houston and Fairhope, Ala., once transformed a mahogany chest of drawers they found at an antiques fair into a vanity.
“It was perfect for the space,” Ms. Warren said. “We had a local carpenter work on the drawers so they were really smooth.”
The designers even kept the stone top that was already on the chest, and had a stone fabricator create a cutout for the sink.
For another bathroom, they found a vintage bleached wood cabinet at the Houston antiques shop Back Row Home and replaced the top with a marble counter to turn it into a vanity.
“It’s not difficult at all,” Ms. Warren said. “And it can be less expensive than making a custom cabinet.”
Turn It Into Sculpture
There’s no rule that says a bathroom vanity has to be a rectangular cabinet. If you want to make the vanity the star of the bathroom, you can give it a more sculptural shape.
In a bathroom Ten Plus Three designed in Mexico, they carved a sink from a rough granite boulder and added pedestals on either side to function as flat counters. “The clients wanted to bring natural materials inside of the house to make it more interesting,” Mr. Bueno said.
In another bathroom, the firm designed a bulbous vanity covered in parchment leather with a waterproof high-gloss finish. The piece doesn’t look like a traditional vanity, but has curved doors that open to reveal storage.
It wasn’t the easiest vanity to build, Mr. Bueno said, but “we’re just always trying to find ways to make bathrooms a little more special.”
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