Replace your bathroom vanity

I can not stand my old bathroom vanity! It's old, the drawers don't open, and is WAY too short! 32 inches tall means that every time I need to wash my face I have to fully bend over. Much more than I would with a normal vanity. What that also means is that my husband basically has to crouch to wash his face and brush his teeth. Its not good, in fact its very inconvenient. Finally fed up with what we had, we were determined to replace it. Take a look at our old vanity:

Long story short, we were wandering around IKEA one day when we found a clearance section. That's right, IKEA has a clearance section. This is where they put everything from the store that has been damaged or replaced by a newer model. In the back corner of this section was a beautiful bathroom vanity (with no top) that had a small scratch on it on the right hand side. If you look at the picture above, you will notice that the right side of the vanity is up against a wall. Talk about a major score. We got our new vanity for 62.5% off of the original price. We proceeded to immediately buy it and pick out a sink to go with it. Home we go to demolish, and let me say, so much frustration was taken out on that poor miniature vanity! See how far my husband has to bend over with that vanity!

So once we had everything out, we marked our studs. The reason you want to mark your studs is that you need something very sturdy to attach your new vanity to. Attaching your vanity to just drywall is not a good idea. We do not own a stud finder. Why? Because we use magnets. When building a house, drywall has to be screwed into the studs using metal screws. With something as simple as a strong magnet, you can find your studs. The black dots on the picture below, those are our studs. 

Now for the hard part, plumbing. We have very hard plumbing in our house. Its old and we have galvanized pips of an unusual size. If you don't know how to do plumbing, call a plumber. Last thing you want is to ruin your beautiful new vanity. My husband and I decided to do this ourselves. I will spare you the gory details but it was awful. The good part was that almost all parts were included with our sink from IKEA.

Next you need to mount your vanity to the wall. PLEASE make sure you level your vanity. Do not just screw it into the studs and hope that everything will be ok. Use a level, I recommend two. One for side to side and one for front to back. Now go ahead and dry fit your top making sure everything looks the way you want. Once it is dry fit, remove it from the vanity. You need to seal the top using a caulk/sealant. Apply a bead of sealant all the way around the top edge of your vanity and then place the vanity directly on top. Do not scoot it back and forth. Try and place it straight down on top. Give small wiggle but that's it. Once everything is sealed and you just have to connect your water lines and your ready to show it off.

This is by no means an easy project but you will love your results. It not only improved the functionality of the room for us but updated the look of the bathroom. Next project for the bathroom: replace the old ceiling fan.