One of the 2012 home improvement goals (actually, one of the “maybes”) was to switch the pedestal sinks in both bathrooms for vanities. I love a good pedestal sink and ours are actually really nice, but I prefer vanities for their storage capabilities. After all, most bathroom necessities aren’t usually pretty. Even though we managed to keep it looking quite nice and organized in the guest bathroom with a 17€ metal shelving unit (also from Ikea)…
The shelves worked for these 2.5 years. I know some people prefer not to buy interim items and save for the real deal, but we simply needed a place to keep all our towels these last couple of years. And I considered those 17€ an investment in my sanity until we could afford to buy the vanity we wanted. It turned out that waiting for the vanity was a great idea, because the one we have chosen for the guest bathroom didn’t exist when we moved in. Although at first, I wasn’t sure whether we should buy a vanity or try to build one ourselves. In the end, we decided to buy one because we wanted one with drawers (I think they’re more practical) and we’re not pro enough to build anything with drawers. Plus building one would have been a real hassle and not necessarily cheaper.
So I started looking around for vanities and kept coming back to Ikea. Their Godmorgon series has good reviews and seemed to be nicely built. I was in love with the high gloss dark gray look and thought it would fit in great in the guest bathroom. When I saw a picture of it installed in Dana’s Underdog, I was sold. We just needed to save a bit more.
Image from Ikea
A few weeks ago, I noticed the vanity I had chosen no longer appeared on Ikea’s website and I started to freak out. What if they discontinued it? I didn’t really want to choose another one! At the same time, the monthly newsletter came in the mail and I saw that they were running a 10% sale in their bathroom series. Plus we had a couple of gift cards saved up… so we decided to pull the trigger and buy the vanity + sink set. It retails for 279€ here, minus 10% (27.90€) which they gave us in a gift card. We also had a couple of gift cards totaling around 100€ so it wasn’t that bad.
We had a free afternoon last week and finally made the switch. It took us four and a half hours but it’s done and I love it! Even though I don’t use that bathroom a lot, we’ve been able to fit all our cleaning supplies (you might recall my conundrum here) so I’m really happy about that. The only problem right now is the mirror – since we installed the vanity against the wall, it’s no longer centered… we’ll fix that this week. Oh and we decided to install the vanity against the left wall instead of centered with the bathroom door & mirror to leave a bit of breathing room for the toilet. We could have bought a smaller vanity set and have it centered with space next to the toilet, but more storage space trumps everything being centered for me. We do live in a small apartment after all.
This is what happens when you work on DIY/reno stuff in a small apartment: everything’s a mess
The old sink is out… notice the two holes that held it in place. We made four new holes for the new vanity. Also, taking out the existing sink was a two person job – one held the sink so it wouldn’t fall while the other unscrewed everything.
Four new smaller holes for the vanity from Ikea
The structure is in place…
We glued (with silicone) the sink on top
Attaching all the pipes
All set! Not really… the mirror is off-center
We’ve taken down the mirror and we’ll rehung it sideways to cover the old holes. We also still need to rehang the towel bar.
And the inside of the drawers:
So, the good news? I love it. The sink feels substantial, doesn’t splash even though it looked a bit shallow, and the vanity’s drawers are huge. The high gloss gray goes very well with the existing tiles, too. Plus since it’s a floating vanity it doesn’t feel too heavy. The bad news? Now I want the vanity for our master bath!
Goodness! I love it. It really does a good job of looking light while hiding loads of really great storage!
We had no storage whatsover in our old bathroom so I really love that our new one has a vanity (even though it’s ugly) and loads of shelves.
Thanks Annabel! Storage in a bathroom is definitely a necessity.
Perfect. That’s a sweet vanity! Love how it floats too. I’m
a big fan of the pedestal sinks, but they just aren’t practical enough.
Yeah pedestal sinks are awesome for half baths, I think – since you don’t need that much storage nor ugly bathroom necessities in there.
Your bathroom is gorgeous!
Thanks Melanie! The tile, etc came as is but we were happy to work with that color scheme.
I love the new vanity (and the entire bathroom for that matter!)! It really does match well. And we have those IKEA shelves, too! We’ve got them stashed in our closets but they’re so perfect.
Yeah, they’re great! I’m trying to figure out where to use it now, otherwise I might pass it along to someone else.
You have a gorgeous guest bath! I love your glass walk-in shower! The new vanity is gorgeous! I’ve eyed that one before in IKEA. Looks fantastic. More storage in a bathroom is soooo important!!
Thanks Christine! My uncle installed the glass for the shower, since he has a glass shop. We’re very pleased with the look.
LOVE the new vanity! I actually want to do the opposite and replace one of our vanities with a pedestal sink, but I have huge closets in each of my bathrooms, so I dont really need anymore storage.
Oh if I had enough storage I’d probably choose pedestal sinks, too – they’re very nice.
Looks great; and it has soooo much storage! I am jealous! We have two pedestal sinks at our house…they are cute, but they suck for storage, lol.
Haha, definitely! Storage is a major necessity here. That, and hiding all the ugly bath necessities and cleaning supplies somewhere
That looks great! I agree: pedestal sinks are nice to look at, but in a small place, storage is more important! We have a small Ikea vanity right now, but we’re planning on upgrading to an even larger (although shallow) one when we redo our bathroom.
Yeah, that’s the problem with pedestal sinks. Can’t wait to see what you do with your bathroom!
I love love love this Ainhoa and your bathroom is sooo nice! My bathroom looks similar to Dana’s (except it’s green and black tile) and someday I hope to remodel it – maybe with this vanity! Plus, I definitely think it’s okay to spend money on interim things.
Thanks Crystal! I’m glad you like it. And yeah, 17€ on 2.5 years wasn’t so bad
This was one of my favorite posts. I love this upgrade you did here!!
I am wondering how this unit is holding up so far. Is the finish on the sink still as new? Since it is not a real stone, but an artificial one, I have concerns before actually buying it.
Hey Marcin, it’s looking great! The feel & touch are great and the finish is still as good as new.
Ok, full steam ahead on our project then! Well, later this summer
Cheers.
Good luck! I’m sure you’ll be very happy with it. We’ve been using it for almost a year now and we have no issues so far
You can also check out House Tweaking for another opinion – they used the same vanity + sink combo in their master bath.