Project: "Scrap" Vanity for Guest Bath

[Jim Becker]

The vanity in the guest bath of this "new to us" house (a year ago, of course) is falling apart and was never installed correctly, either. The countertop and fixtures are just fine. It's what's underneath that, um...bites. So in addition to some minor repairs and paint to "freshen the room up", a new vanity is required. The origin of the "Scrap" in the title to this thread can be summed up in this photo about when I went "shopping" in my temporary lumber and sheet goods storage on my property; a tent on a deck and the shed, respectively.

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A little more would be added to this as work progressed, but I think you catch my drift here: use up stuff that's already bought and taking up space so it doesn't have to be moved into the new shop building later in the year. :)

I do not do "detailed" plans for something like this, but I do establish the basic design and overall dimensions

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The carcass consists of four corner "posts" that are 40mm square. They were glued up from a bunch of poplar shorts and then milled to what turned out to be the final size. Originally, I planned for 45mm, but the wood decided it wanted to be a hair smaller. It had opinions... :D To avoid being totally boring, the bottom 125 mm would have a taper on the two inside faces...a quick and dirty jig got whacked together from yet some more scrap materials and the deed was done. The left rear remained square since it will never be seen.

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Various rebates were cut on the appropriate edges to provide glue surface for attaching the sides and back, but those were not cut until the material was chosen for each element. Why? Different thicknesses. Some of the panels are even stitched together smaller pieces of plywood, glued and pocket screwed together...nothing that would be visible and a good use for the material. (thankfully, all but one piece of the plywood was BB or equivalent which is nice to work with, there is one piece of melamine in there, too, to block out the left, inside)

For this build I used the hand-screw trick to hold the two side pieces vertical while I pieced together the back. It's such a simple thing, but does it much better than other ways that can be attempted.

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Glue, screws, brads, pins...whatever was appropriate for whatever I was doing got used.

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At the present time, the carcass is complete. The next step is to create the two drawers which need to clear the plumbing in the middle. The current, decrepit vanity is similarly designed in that respect. This version has more space on the bottom shelf for towels, etc., than existing. More on this project when I get to the drawers. Too hot in the temporary shop to deal with that now.

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[glenn bradley]

Way to rock the scrap pile Jim!

[Jim Becker]

Yes, it's strangely satisfying, Glenn. I'm somewhat of a packrat when it comes to material and even though I literally threw out about 1500 lbs of it prior to moving, there's still a lot of very usable stuff just dying to be a project or a fixture or whatever. The one challenge is getting to some of it, particularly the sheet goods that's still in sheets, so using up some of these smaller offcuts will help with that. There are places on this project that look butt-ugly, but that will never be seen, so I'm having at it!

[Dave Anderson NH]

Well done Jim. I completely outfitted a 14 foot storage trailer with racks and shelving from my "stock" of oddball part sheets, cutoffs, ripped lengths of 4-6 quarter stuff. So what if it doesn't color match or have the same or similar grain.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, this just seemed like the right kind of project to "burn some scrap", as it were...one side and the back is completely hidden and it's not a large construction either, at about 910mm wide.

[Jim Becker]

Today was drawer day...which started out with a little "shopping" in the shed

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After cutting two pieces of leftover QSWO 12.5mm plywood to manageable size with the tracksaw and taking careful measurements to determine what the drawer bottom size needed to be and creating the basic drawer bottoms, I used the table saw to partially cut out the portion of the drawers that just can't be there because, you know...plumbing. That was followed by a partial plunge cut with the track saw to establish the edge parallel to the drawer for those cutouts. If I took the time to remove the riving knife, this step could have largely removed the material, but for two small cuts....nope, not gonna do that. It was simpler to just finish things out with the jigsaw.

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The remaining plywood was cut into appropriately sized strips to create the various side pieces and those necessary for the "jog". I got the entirety of both drawers out of the equivalent of a half-sheet of plywood with the exception of two small components that I had to draw on a scrap of cherry plywood at the back of the narrow center section. Assembly was frankly really simple...glue and inch and a quarter brads. There is enough structure here with the base glued and nailed to the sides and so forth that you could stand on these things without breaking them. Top edges of all the sides and internals have a tiny round-over to keep them smooth.

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You can see in this shot after the drawer slides were installed how the back of the drawers are configured to "miss" any plumbing.

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At the end of the day...all that is left from a construction perspective is the drawer fronts. I'm still considering how I want to design them, whether they be flat or emulate frame and panel. We'll all know the answer once I actually make a decision and make them. :) But that will be soon as the table saw is leaving next weekend to make space for a very large crate that is arriving two months early from Italy. First world problem...

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[Jim Becker]

So I can officially say that I've scraped together enough of the scrap to create the whole Scrap Vanity and no more scrap scraping is required. It's built. I may or may not add some kind of shadow line "something or another" on the drawer fronts with the CNC, but otherwise, it's on to finishing in my copious free time. Oh, and I love those little plastic shims that someone on the 'Tube recommended awhile back. They really worked great for setting the drawer fronts. The drawer fronts, BTW, were made from a couple of old MDF utility shelving pieces that were hanging out in the shed.

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[Jim Becker]

Shot the primer today in my "expansive" finishing booth, AKA, the side driveway extension. :) I found that my good gun was having an issue with the onboard regulator for the PPS system, so I pulled out my old Wagner HPLV conversion gun just to get the primer on since I had done all the prep work and setup and so forth. It worked fine, but being back on a "suction pipe" in the cup really limits gun positions when trying to spray inside something or even vertically like is necessary on a piece like that. It worked out...I just kept the gun full of the primer.

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I ordered the replacement part assembly I needed from Jeff Jewitt and will get the top color coats on once I have the good gun working properly. The final color will be a deep, but still creamy green which we chose for this particular room to compliment other design plans. If I spray outside again, I'm likely going to put up my canopy to keep the direct sun off for that operation.

[Jim Becker]

Just an update on this project...the "scrap vanity" is essentially ready for installation at this point after I take care of some plumbing upgrades for the bath tub and shower.

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Color got sprayed inside since the space was freed up when the PCS went to its new home

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When I designed the drawers, I had moved from using the existing vanity top with integrated sink to an above vanity sink arrangement like we had at our previous home. When I changed my mind about that a few days ago, it necessitated a little redesign of the top drawer as there was no longer any room for an actual usable drawer. So today I cut out the "offending" parts of that construction so it could still go in using the slides and easily be removed should plumbing maintenance be required. After installation, a couple of small L brackets will make it a "non functioning drawer" under normal circumstances, but still allow it to easily come out if needed.

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The bottom drawer operates normally...note the accommodation for the sink drain

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To install the drawer handles, I made a quick and dirty drilling jig from some scrap plywood...it's nice when everything lines up exactly!

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I'm well on the way to completing the whole guest bath refresh over the next couple of days and will make a final post at that point that shows how everything came together. Although the general intent here was "spend as little money as possible since there's big building about to go up in the back yard", sanity prevailed and all new fixtures have been acquired so everything matches. That included the vanity light and some electrical things because the originals were just not going to work out, especially the light as it was impossible to get all the paint splatters off of it without causing noticeable damage to the ORB-like finish.

[Von Bickley]

Looks great. I never would have thought about building drawers like that, I guess that's why you get paid the big bucks.

[Jim Becker]

Looks great. I never would have thought about building drawers like that, I guess that's why you get paid the big bucks.

LOL! The master bath vanities I built at our old property for the addition project had a similar accomodation for plumbing, but it was actually simpler there as there were three drawers along the top with a top mounted bowl. So for that situation, I could make the actual two drawers that bisected the drain location narrower, but keep the drawer fronts a consistent third of the space. I don't have a photo with an open drawer, but you can see from this photo how that worked out. Each drawer front was about three inches wider than the actual drawer for those two below the sink bowl.

https://bn1303files.storage.live.com/y4miinF2Gz-NbvF0Il-ad6FDHxk1bDye4I-5QdT6xKn10d2o8KZe_rHyxgFLWY9wCX9YGuGP4ex429pkDNkrz KF2VU4kGnGYilJAtkBxcIqgPvxU022KYLU6GmqkeD2aLJEzjvv hppsNVetGns2x1QY3ZIC2x7KWD5PERVCgj4yaGUDlRAuKEM1gr ffxki_jRFZPW0MHqJAJDUx1_q0ENcDkBnA82pEivf0mtl1LkKf GV8?encodeFailures=1&width=399&height=600

For this "scrap vanity" project that used a single width drawer design, the space division had to be incorporated directly into the drawer. Interestingly, the old crappy vanity from some homecenter that the previous owner put in also had the drawers set up this way. So I'm not really doing something completely innovative here.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Well done Jim. I like the shallow middle segment. I hate to think of how much ends up "lost" in the back of deep drawers at my house.

[Jim Becker]

Well done Jim. I like the shallow middle segment. I hate to think of how much ends up "lost" in the back of deep drawers at my house.
Yes, I agree...if this was not a guest bath, I'd probably put additional dividers in the usable drawers, at least on one side, for normal organization after considering what the actual need is.

[Greg Parrish]

Just now seeing this tread. That turned out great, Jim.

[Jim Becker]

The "scrap vanity" is now fully installed in the guest bath and completely functional. The whole room renewal only has a few more little things to go and I'll post a few photos at that point that bring everything into perspective.

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[Jim Becker]

The deeds are done..."scrap vanity" and the guest bath refresh to be specific. I'm really VERY happy with how this all turned out.

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[Greg Parrish]

Looks great Jim. Gonna save these pics for future inspiration.

[Tim Andrews]

Looks great Jim, one would never guess that such a nice piece came from the scrap pile!

[Jim Becker]

one would never guess that such a nice piece came from the scrap pile!

I've been getting more cognizant of upcycling/recycling, etc. over the past year or so after having to experience the shop cleanout at the old property and enjoying a number of makers out there who do the same. I hauled a 1200 lb load of "stuff" to the the recycling center as part of that and I'd say a third to a half of that was material that "could" have been used when the right project came along. I really didn't have the choice at that point, but it really hurt for sure. I want to try and avoid that going forward so as this project proves, you really can use the "scraps" if you think things through. Of course, there's also the concept of being reasonable...one can only store so much "scrap", so I am a bit more selective at this point.