I found the photo of the Kraftmaid freestanding cabinets. I think I'd have to do a 15" linen cabinet in order to leave space between it and the vanity. Is that size linen cabinet practical?

I also like the stain color.

Fold your towels and measure the width. You will only be able to do a single stack. Subtract the width of the sides - usually 3/4 inch each side. What else do you want to store there?

I guess the only thing that won't fit with refolding are extra pillows, which can go in the bedroom closets.

I'm also wondering about the 15" width looking too narrow and disproportional to the vanity. Of course we wouldn't go as high as the one in the photo, so it won't be skinny AND tall. We have 8' ceilings.

You're comparing apples and oranges to compare that KM brochure pic with your small bath. You don't have room for that look, and you don't have the luxury of eliminating precious storage space to try for that look. Stick with a regular vanity that butts into a regular linen tower. You can still do some feet on the vanity in order to make it look more furniture like.

Thanks, Holly. I would also lose counter space. I remember my mother's small bath when she downsized, and she had a linen tower abutting a single-sink vanity. The tower seemed to dwarf the vanity, and it was also a very dark wood. It was probably wider than 18" too. So I think I have that picture in my mind and I was trying to do something airier.

So am I correct in thinking I should maximize the vanity length and not go back to a 36"? I would really like to have two sets of drawers like in the photo because this bath would be the children's bathroom when we resell, and it would be better to accommodate two kids with an extra set of drawers. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home in a neighborhood with young families. I do have 64". Another option is to have the cabinet maker build in an 18" wide counter-depth closet, perhaps with open shelves on top.

This post was edited by may_flowers on Mon, Jan 7, 13 at 17:35

We have a furniture look vanity with a linen closet attached. I don't think the tower dwarfs the vanity, but maybe that's just me :)

That's lovely! I like that it's set back behind the vanity a few inches. The two deep drawers are nice too.

I found one on Houzz that probably has the right proportions. I don't like the base and flared out feet though. Any guess to the measurements on these?

Haha, beagles! I just found your Jack and Jill bath on Houzz!

You can also have your guy build a matching wall cabinet for over the toilet since you need storage badly. That's wasted space right there. :-)

Also, do you utilize under-the-bed space? You can buy storage bins for there - your pillows and other stuff can be stored like that.

To follow-up on Gina's suggestion. I am planning to have a long mirror/medicine cabinet continue from over my small (probably 33") vanity in my Master bath to over the toilet. I will have the cabinet deeper in the vanity section, though it will appear the same depth from the bathroom. (This bathroom backs on to another that we are also renovating, so I'll be able to nab a few inches of depth for the cabinet). I saw the continuous mirror look in an ad in our local newspaper, and thought it looked really sharp, and would open up a small space and of course add much needed storage.

That might work for you too?

Raehelen, I'm having trouble picturing that, but we have a tub perpendicular to the toilet, so there's no wall to stop a medicine cabinet.

May Flowers, I'm not sure if I'm interpreting your posts correctly, but it sounds like your desire to have a larger vanity is motivated by the thought of resale, that many families in your neighborhood have children so your house might be attractive to a family with children, and a family looking to buy your house might be persuaded to buy it in part because of double sinks with more storage space for multiple children. That's a lot of hypotheticals - and a lot of money to spend (between the costs of demoing the linen closet and building a custom vanity) on something that you almost certainly wouldn't make back when you sold.

Not exactly. The bathroom has a short child-size vanity with no drawers, so it needs to be replaced. There's a lot of wasted space inside the linen closet. We need counter space for guests more than we need more linen closet space for us. I don't want double sinks--I'm hoping to put in drawers on both sides so if two children shared this room, they'd each have their own drawer stack. But it may not be doable without ending up with very narrow and useless drawers.

We may stay 10 more years, but we always think of what would make this home attractive to the young hi-tech professionals who buy in this neighborhood.

I like the look of all your inspiration photos. We will be doing something similar (I hope) in our main bath, though we have a few more inches of counter space to work with (72 inches). We had a custom made vanity built for our basement BR, and we have two banks of 15" drawers and a set of 18" doors under the sink. I had a pullout drawer made to store cleaning supplies under sink. Drawers are big enough, but it was a problem finding a small sink to fit in the 18" space in the middle. (Did find an American Standard). I just measured a sewing cabinet that I bought yesterday, and it is 15" wide, but I notice the sides are made with 5/8' wood rather than 3/4' and surprisingly that gives an extra bit of space. Drawers or pull-out shelves in the 15" linen tower would further restrict your useable space, so you may want to keep it narrower than counter depth.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I wish I could do a 48" but I'm sure I won't be able to. I'm not planning on pull-outs, but I am thinking about making the bottom of the tower a tilt-out hamper. The laundry closet is right across from the guest bath and there's no room for a laundry basket. I often shower in the guest bath when DH hasn't cleaned the master shower in awhile. That's his job, and men don't see dirt like women do.

I love the colors in this bathroom. I'm a nature girl. :) I like the white vanities but I'm afraid of how the paint will hold up from a custom shop. It's not a baked on finish. But I think the wall color would be nice with the Caesarstone Buttermilk counters and a light wood vanity. Maybe rift-sawn white oak. I could do a shower curtain in the valance colors.

This post was edited by may_flowers on Tue, Jan 8, 13 at 8:22

We updated our Master Bathroom late last year. Our storage situation was like yours - needing drawers, etc. A local cabinet maker made both a new vanity and linen cabinet. After removing the return wings from the previous door, we now have a 22 3/4" cabinet in the space.

We had similar faux marble vanity top with the molded sinks. Going granite with undermounted basins made all the difference in the usable surface.

As another thought, our guest bath had no place for extra towels so we installed a train rack.

The linked photos of our Master Bath aren't well organized but show the interior and exterior of the cabinets. They are solidly built and actually were significantly less costly than something ready-made which didn't offer the features.

Good luck with your update.

Here is a link that might be useful: Master Bath

Nice! Your linen closet is so much nicer than ours! Great use of storage too. I'm excited to get started after seeing your photos!

We met with the cabinet maker and we are leaning toward a full-length vanity with a hutch that sits on the counter. We should be able to do two drawer stacks and a drawer under the center door. With the bottom drawer in the vanity and shelves in the hutch, we should have enough towel storage to eliminate the linen closet.

At the end of the vanity nearest the wall, where the hutch would go, we are thinking about putting in an undercounter pull-out hamper or leaving it open and putting in a wicker hamper.

Will post the preliminary drawings when we get them next week.

This is basically what we talked about. I hadn't thought about putting the electrical outlet inside the hutch, but that would work.

may_flowers - Your example looks very nice. We actually considered something similar but in the end decided the plant ledge above was something we did not wish to lose. Instead we installed music up there and a cable connection should we decide to have a TV in the bath. Also, the wall provided our only spot to install a medicine cabinet as the mirror above the vanity is an outside wall.

Our electricity is in below the vanity - you will lose some of your counter space in order to access a garage for the hair dryer, etc.

This is what I did using kitchen cabinets - albeit in a larger space. We have a 60" vanity and 24" wide tall cabinet with all pullouts. I bought these at a salvage store and refinished the vanity cabinets, but the linen cabinet (aka pantry) was in fine shape. I used kitchen cabinets because I think they use space more efficiently than a typical vanity;you're definitely going to maximize the space using a custom cabinetmaker.

You did a great job refinishing it! Love the ledge! That's also one of the nicest medicine cabinets I've seen. Your bathroom gives the feeling of clean simplicity.

Thank you, may flowers. I do love my medicine cabinet! It came to me as two separate cabinets, also from a salvage shop. I realized it would be hard to recess them into the wall, as they measure about 40 x 40, so I had the contractor wall-mount them and make it look more built-in by putting the ledge underneath. The top is built up to match our window trim (sorry no photo that shows the top; chaos reigns here right now). They used to be that kind of pickled oak finish, so this is evidence of the beauty of white paint!

Your wood vanity and white mirror copies the hot new look in kitchens of white uppers with wood lowers. One of the Street of Dreams homes in our area did that.

What is the wood and stain color of your vanity?

I'll have to tell my husband, because he objects to the stained wood vanity! But my kitchen is all white cabinets, and I wanted wood somewhere in the house.

The wood is cherry, and to match the original finish I used a gel stain by General Finishes, Candlelite finish. Then I used their Satin top coat.

The off-white paint is called Ewe, by Devine Paints, sold by Miller Paint Co.

Well then, since I believe Miller is only in the Portland metro area, you must be a neighbor! So the Street of Dreams bath was this year's.

We just put in a cherry kitchen, so I'm hesitating to use it again in the guest bath. I'm not sure how I feel about white painted cabinets.

Almost neighbors - Seattle area has Miller too.

I like painted cabinets, but I do enjoy having the cherry in this spot because the rest of the bath is white or near white. I thought about a dark grey, which is very on-trend right now, but my husband thought that would be odd.

I don't know if gray will catch on in this area. One advantage to gray in the bath is if you have some really old white towels, you wouldn't have to buy new ones. They're probably already some shade of gray.

Mayflowers - where did you get that picture you added under "We meet with the cabinet maker tomorrow, so hopefully I can post some drawings of his ideas in a few days.

Here's another Houzz find."

As I said back then, Houzz. I just did a Google Image search and the original doesn't come up, just Pinterest and other websites that got it off Houzz.

hello. i love the January 2013 gray vanity and linen cabinet combo. Where can I get them? thank you

hello. i love the January 2013 gray vanity and linen cabinet combo. Where can I get them? thank you