Pottery Barn Knock-Off Vanity

While hunting for a vanity for our bathroom on Kijiji, I came across a wild deal on a piece of quartz counter.  The man selling it was a contractor, and this piece was the wrong colour for his client.  So for $250, I got a beautiful piece of silvery-sparkled quartz with two beveled sink cut-outs, and two under-mount sinks.




I thought it was a great find, until I realized that finding a vanity to fit UNDER the countertop was next to impossible.  Most vanities are 18" deep, and this piece was 24" deep.  Finally, I decided to tackle something I've never done before: I would build my own vanity.  How hard could it be?

Ah ha ha ha.  Oh Jen, when will you learn?

Here was my inspiration.  This vanity (just the vanity, not the counter, sinks, or faucets) will cost you a hefty $2,599 at Pottery Barn.

The materials for my vanity cost me $174.

Not as elaborate or as pretty, but guess what?  I built that myself.

This is a brief guide as to how I did it.  I am not a carpenter.  I really have never constructed anything like this before.  Mark helped me with the math, I had some help from my little brother, and used my Dad's table saw.  Other than that, I used the tools I had, which included:

- an air nailer

- clamps

- a kreg jig 

I started with the posts.  Because the turned vanity legs were not in my budget, I decided to go with square legs and bun feet.  I used a piece of hardboard for the legs, cut it in strips with the table saw, then glued and air-nailed them together to form the posts.

Next, I attached the posts using 1x4 boards.

My brother Steve helped me construct the side panels which we slid in between the posts.  They were basically made from strips of 1x2 and a sheet of 1/4" plywood.

Then I glued, nailed, kreg-jiged and clamped the whole puppy together.

The bun feet are actually pressure-treated pieces for deck posts.  They were $4.97 a piece, compared to the non-pressure treated bun feet, at $17 a piece.

Then I framed in my cupboard doors, and inserted the shelves, cut out of the same 1/4" plywood.

At this point I got really excited and had to set it up with the vanity on top to see how it looked.

Aaahhh.... so pretty!

From this point we hauled it back to our old house so I could do some of the finishing details on it.  I wood-filled in all the nail holes (and all my mistakes), sanded it down, installed the doors (which took hours to get them to hang right) (in fact, they still don't hang right).

I always have help!

Painting the vanity was the easy part (as we all know, I've painted my share of furniture).  I used left-over cabinet paint from painting my kitchen.

Mark installed it in the new house.

And here it is, all finished.

I still need mirrors above my vanity, but, well, that is a detail for another day.

I had fun with this project, and learned a lot.  It definitely won't be my last wood-working project.  In fact, my staircase needs some balusters...