The vanity in our master bathroom when we moved in was short, oak, and featured a floral frosted glass door. See my full first budget bathroom update here.

I knew I wanted to replace it with something taller but with 2 drawers still, since this bathroom is tiny I couldn’t upgrade from a 24” wide to a 28” wide vanity. I quickly learned the 24” wide options were slim and all the options were white laminate. We had white laminate cabinets in our townhouse and had issues with the thermoplast panels pulling off the backer, no thank you. So I measured the vanity in our guest suite, 24” wide, two drawers, and GASP actual wood!

Once we completed our Guest Suite bathroom update we started on ‘upcycling’ that  vanity for our master bath.

First we removed the sink top, since it was marbled and covered in paint droplets, we replaced it.

Then I sanded the whole vanity down, including the laminate over plywood sides.

Two coats of Zissner Stain Blocker Oil Based Primer

3 coats of the Behr satin off white paint we used on our kitchen cabinets.

Then we raised the vanity up 5” to be counter height. To do this we added 6” wide boards, ripped down to 5” to the bottom of the vanity using corner brackets and straps, like so. We also Liquid Nailed everything as well. The key to doing it this way is to find a board the same width as the bottom of the vanity, in our case this was 1/2 inch.

Then cut a hole in the bottom of the vanity since our shut off valves in this bathroom sit on the floor.

For the vanity top I originally wanted to do marble to go with our ‘'marble floor” but the $300 price point vs. the $54 white top just wasn’t justifiable. It looks great! 

Then we placed the vanity in the bathroom, installed our new Pfister Selia faucet in the vanity top, got the plumbing in place and quickly learned that the “Glacier Bay Newport Vanity Top” doesn’t have a overflow which caused our push and seal drain from Pfister not to work. One $20 overflow less drain later, our $54 sink top was saved.

With the plumbing figured out we focused on the trim.

We cut bead board to fit the new taller kick plate and side of the vanity. The vanity front extends past the side so the breadboard edge was not visible. For the seam with the wall we added left over cap molding from our wainscoting project.

 

On the other side we added pvc outside corner molding to fill the gap against the wall, we also used this for the corner of the kick plate. This worked out great since our corner wasn’t a perfect cut.

To finish the inside of the cabinet, I cut cardboard to fit around the supplies, then I taped it down with some blue tape, then covered the whole bottom with contact paper. In the event we need to turn the water off we’ll quickly tear it out and replace the contact paper. This worked out well since we made the access hole oversize to make it easier, with the ‘cover’ I can still use the entire cabinet.

To finish off the project we tacked our corner round back down and caulked everything with Alex Plus.

It was a lot of work to ‘save’ our ‘free’ vanity but I think it was worth it, especially since there weren’t any out of the box options I loved, and some of the issues we had were tied to our bathroom and couldn’t have been avoided.

Supplies & Cost

• Oil Based Primer & Paint – Used Left Overs
• Bead Board – Surprise delivery from my amazing MIL ($10 divided across two projects)
• New Top - Glacier Bay Newport Vanity Top + Side Splash– $72.97
• New Faucet - Pfister Selia faucet – $79
• Wood & Hardware for height extension – $22.52
  • Stanley-National Hardware 0.875-in x 4-in Flat Brace  x2 $5.74
  • Kiln-Dried Radiata Pine Softwood Board (Common: 6-in x 2-ft;) x 2 $6.86
  • Kiln-Dried Radiata Pine Softwood Board (Common: 6-in x 3-ft;) $4.96
  • Stanley-National Hardware 4-Pack 0.5-in x 2-in Zinc-Plated Flat Braces x 2 $4.96
• New Cabinet Hardware- $10.94
  • Brainerd 3-3/4-in Center-to-Center Vintage Nickel Nolan Bar Cabinet Pull $4.97
  • Brainerd 1-3/8-in Satin Nickel Round Cabinet Knob x 2 $5.94
• Corner PVC Trim – $5.97

Total $191.38

Just like everyone else we have grand someday plans for our tiny master bath, but we definitely needed to do something before we got to all that, and I’m so glad we did, so so much better!

What we did:

Painted the room in Behr Silver Drop, we used full gloss since our house was built pre bathroom special drywall, the gloss helps protect the wall from the moisture.

Painted the oak medicine cabinet the gray of our dresser. Replaced the knob. Pretty easy, looks great now, didn’t have to figure out what to do with the hole, plus kept the storage.

Painted the hanging curio that same grey, and using painters tape and frosted glass spray paint added stripes for interest.

Painted the oak vanity. Getting a new taller vanity is something we’d like to do soonish, but finding 24” one with drawers has been tough. On a total whim with no prep I painted it the wall color. It worked out pretty well, scratches easily, but it you remember to always use your handy spray painted hardware it should hold up as temp fix. Painting it the wall color has really helped me make it disappear for now!

Replaced the hardware We had the cheap horrible oak bathroom hardware, I replaced those with some nice brushed nickel hardware from the Pfister Redmond collection, which I thought was a good value, it’s well made, easy to hang, and wasn’t as expensive as some.

Replaced the Light fixture still needs to be hung next time my dad is in town, our electrical mysteries continue and we unveiled an exposed live wire… yeah so we’ve been rocking the bathroom floor lamp… yeah it’s getting old.

 

So much better,and everything spent can be utilized again when we tackle the vanity, spaceship shower, and floor someday. Definitely glad we made the small investment in getting this room updated on a dime.