Basement Bathroom Vanity Makeover

I’ve been working on my basement bathroom to wrap up all my basement renovations. This is the last big project! This is a full bathroom down here with lots of potential. I didn’t want to a full scale renovation – I want to work with what I’ve got! I planned to do a lot without doing a lot. Does that make sense?! When we last left off, I installed a new toilet & new lighting. Next up, a vanity makeover!

Now it started to get juicy. I had a fun plan for this vanity! I don’t love vanity cabinets – I feel like it’s a waste of space and I visually like drawers more. I planned to convert the vanity that’s already in here into drawers! Here’s what it looked like before I started.

Plans

The plan was to take the doors off, add in drawer slides, and build drawer boxes to fit around the plumbing. I did something similar for the dresser vanity conversion in my bathroom so I’m familiar with the process. You can see that whole process in this blog post. I turned this thrifted dresser into a vanity!

First, I removed the doors. Then, I added blocking for my drawer slides with wood glue and screws. I added this blocking to make the inside of the vanity flush with the framing so the drawer slides could actually open!

Drawer Boxes

Then, I went out to my shed to make my drawer boxes. I cut down all of the pieces on my miter saw. Then, I used my table saw to cut out a little channel for the drawer bottom to sit when it was all put together.

I added some wallpaper to the bottom pieces for a fun little surprise when you open the drawers!

The first drawer was easy – but the next two interfered with the plumbing. I basically left the center section of the drawer open to fit around the plumbing I tested this with spacers and it worked!

Next, I installed drawer slides and put the drawers in! This was a bit more time consuming than I thought it would be but it looks great.

Drawer Fronts

I cut down all of my drawer fronts. Then, this is the hardware I used on my bathroom vanity too.

I needed to notch out part of the wood in order to install these. I marked where the hardware would lay and then drilled with a larger forstner bit and chiseled out the space for this hardware.

I decided to add a toe kick to make the vanity look a bit more high end. I used painter’s tape to draw the radius (love that trick). My friend @abby_roadhome did this on hers and it looks amazing. I marked it with a pencil and cut it down with my jigsaw!

Then, I installed the drawer fronts and toe kick!

Vanity Top

The vanity top that was in here wasn’t terrible. But I ended up finding a marble top at Home Depot that was pretty affordable. So I went ahead and ordered it!

The new sink didn’t line up with the plumbing (DUH CASS) and the faucet didn’t fit the sink holes.🫠 BUT I got the marble top on so that was a win!

Plumbing

As I discovered, the new sink drain sat a couple of inches back AND lower than the old one. So, I came to the conclusion that I just needed to remove the old plumbing and start over.

It was a bit chaotic but I got it straight and the water worked!

Paint

I was planning to paint the vanity this deep, mushroom-y color. BUT I am SO obsessed with the red wall color (Rumors by Behr). So I thought I might color drench on the vanity?