DIY Monday: Dresser to Bathroom Vanity? Part 1: The Search

I love, love, love the look of a sideboard or dresser turned into a bathroom vanity. I looked at so many pictures of furniture that had been turned into a sink vanity. These top two options are from Canton Antiques, a shop that seems to specialize in this conversion and has some fabulous pieces! Others I found used sideboards or buffets, some used dressers, some used Victorian wash stands. Many replaced the top with a custom slab of marble. All looked expensive... and the ones I could actually buy WERE.

Yet again, we were working on a budget. We couldn't afford to drop $3,000 on a custom vanity. So we had to get creative in our search.

I knew we had to find a piece that left room for the pipes as that was the trickiest part of this

endeavor. As you're searching, you should also keep the following in mind: height, stability of legs, placement of pipes (do they come from the wall or the floor) storage needs, room for sinks on top, room for "work space" on top and dimensions of the area in which it will be placed.

Given my love of antique furniture, I really didn't want to tear apart a piece of furniture that was otherwise salvageable to use in it's original purpose. So the more scratched up, dinged up or beat up, the better for me.

When looking at possibilities, buffets often had cabinets that allowed room for the pipes, but they were on tall spindly legs that, once cut above the supports to make it short enough, would not provide us the support and stability we needed. Sideboards were lovely, but they usually had a row of drawers in the center that would need to be gutted giving us less storage space (a valuable commodity in our home). Dressers were often full of drawers as well.

We also had to keep in mind the dimensions of the space in which the finished piece would fit. Some were way too short for double sinks. Others were too long for our space. We had picked out the vessel sinks before we picked out the piece so we could be sure to have enough surface area on top for two sinks and some work space in between. We had to think about the placement of the drain as well - whether it would be in the center of a cabinet or the center of a support piece or drawer.

I looked at estate sales, on ebay, in used furniture stores and poured through Craigslist postings. In the end, we found a well-"loved" French Provincial dresser on Craigslist that was exactly the right length and height for our sinks, leaving some work space in between and that would fit in our space. The sides - the part that would be under the sink - had open cabinets that were perfect for the pipes and drains. We had to cut into one side of the drawers because our pipes came from the wall and were fixed in place, but the cuts were slight and easy to do. We still had the remaining drawers for storage space. And best of all, I had no problems painting and cutting this dresser up. It was perfect, but it was brown and needed some work to fit in our overall design. Stay tuned for how I did it!

* Click pictures to find their sources.