We've all likely seen it in magazines, or heard of it being done from a friend or antiques dealer, or witnessed it in a friend or family members renovated bathroom, and it seems like a pretty straight forward and simple idea. The concept is one that can both save a few bucks, add a little character to a room. What am I talking about? I'm talking about taking an old low dresser, side board, or buffet and transforming it into a bathroom sink or vanity.
Really, the idea seems like it should be so easy. Just take an old vanity, cut a few holes in the top, drop a sink or two in, call it a day. Better yet, don't even bother with the old top, take it off and grab a piece of remnant marble or granite, pop in a sink, and you've got yourself a one of a kind vanity.
I have to admit, at first my mind went to the good old "Yeah, that'll be no problem." But then reality set in and I realized that pretty much anything involving retrofitting an existing piece of furniture to be something else, let alone one where you must ensure plumbing has a place to run, is an entirely new set of challenges. Sure, the Pinterest boards are alive with the look of effortless simplicity. "Here, here's a stunning before and after!" We all collectively ooh and ahh at the magnificence of the piece, like a couple of grandmas at a fireworks display.
Slap that little Pinterest price tag ribbon on the piece to add a little salt to the wound. "Wow, would you look at what someone was able to accomplish for just $150.00! Take that, $3,299 Restoration Hardware mass produced double vanity, I'm all in, and I'll raise you a bundle of character you can't possibly be dealt in your hand." Ignore the man behind the curtain and the fact the $150 tag is only talking about the faucet hardware.
Gone are the nitty gritty details, the hole necessary in the cabinet interiors that look like they were chewed by beavers, the sweat and tears no doubt shed while trying to wrestle this piece of furniture from intended purpose into the submission induced new life it's surely meant to lead.
The sad fact is that the majority of these such re-purposes, or "up cycles" as it is often called, end in wasted effort, broken dreams, or in the worst case scenarios, a pile of useless kindling created from the lethal combination if craftiness, power tools, and the haze of an Internet inspired dream.
Don't worry, we've all been there, we've all done that, we should all attend support group meetings, and we should all sing songs of unrealized DIY dreams around amateur fire pits (also from "Pinsperstions") fueled by failed project scrap and poorly conceptualized glitter use.
Well, we want to change the score. Like a couple of scrawny kids on the playground who haven't learned their lesson from the school yard bullies, we refuse to hand over our hard earned lunch money to the likes of mass production pieces and instead and bought ourselves a "vintage" solid wood buffet that will (hopefully) one day become our bathroom vanity.
Rather than just present you with the ugly before and the (hopefully) beautiful after, we're going to show you the step by step journey we're taking to (hopefully) transform our purchase from a mid-century walnut buffet into a double sink marble top vanity with realistic costs for doing such a project in our area.
Jeesh, there sure are a lot of (hopefully)s in those last few paragraphs. But those are there because we don't know how it will actually turn our yet. We only just started the project, and we don't have all the answers. We're going to try our best, absolutely, but a little voice in my head keeps saying "I wouldn't be surprised if we're fire pitting this bad boy by spring." (Not really, but you get the idea.)
After purchasing the buffet, we shared its general look and our plan with you several months ago. Now that we've allowed the buffet to acclimate to our home (and a bunch of other bullcrap excuses for why a project took far too long to begin), we're tackling the first major aspects of this effort, disassembly.
Unlike the joys of renovation demolition, where you have no real care for the damage you do on the items you're throwing out, initial disassembly of a re-purposed piece must be done with purpose and care. In our case, our first goal of removing the top of the buffet so it could ultimately be replaced with a new piece of Carrera marble was not a simple case of a pry bar and elbow grease.
Instead, we had to remove the drawers, shelves, and reinforcing backing piece (you know, the thing that comes with all the Ikea stuff that you're supposed to hammer on with the included nails but never actually do because you're too lazy, always bend the nails, and don't want to make so much noise). After carefully removing all of the nails and setting then aside, the backer piece of compressed board came right off.
With the backing removed, we finally had access to all of the screws used to secure the buffet top to the base. After removing the screws, we received our first major stroke of luck, the top hadn't been glued to the base, so it removed very easily.
As is customary in projects like these, any bit of luck is typically followed by a torrent, or at least a trickle, of misfortune. In our case, it came in the form of structure, or more specifically, the lack of structure.
Any piece of furniture that hopes to one day support a piece of stone as its surface must possess a solid and sturdy base, capable of supporting the stone on all edges and through potential points of weakness. Our buffet was only ever meant to hold a wood top, so the structure needed simply wasn't included in the original construction.
To add insult to injury, the pieces of wood already there had began sagging over the years, almost ensuring a day one crack if we were to ever set a piece of stone in place.
To remedy this issue, we had to perform some additional surgery, removing various pieces of the vanity's support pieces in an effort to ultimately sure up the structure of the vanity's top to support our choice of stone.
At this point in the project we've paused and I've begun obsessing about how best to tackle this item. We don't have the sinks that will ultimately grace this piece of furniture, and that's throwing a wrench into my plans. Without the sinks and their actual dimensions we can't calculate exactly where we can put support elements and where we need to leave room for the bowls. Our plan is to use two undermount sinks for this project. To us, these sinks look better, but they definitely add difficulty over using vessel sinks.
So we're sink shopping and support structure planning, all while hoping beyond all hope that this project actually works out. But this is the Internet, and the Internet loves a good crash and burn as much as a success story, perhaps even more, so we hope you'll follow along to see how this aspect of our overall bathroom project works out. As of now, your guess is as good as ours.
Oh, and let's not forget about the debate that's been ongoing for quite some time about "The Balls." More specifically, should they stay or should they go, now? If they stay there could be trouble (with Wendy). But if they go there could be double (with a torn up vanity). So the answer we need to know...should they stay or should they go?
Have you ever done one of these retrofits? Have any tips or helpful hints that might make our lives easier? I'd love to hear your re-purpose war stories. And what are your thoughts on "The Balls?"
