I like the idea of in-drawer outlets, whatever is allowed. I also really like the idea of having outlets LOWER than the top of the vanity. Mine is just off to the side, just under the lip. Building code requires outlets to be x far away from tub, and within x inches of vanity sink, so your people will need to make sure it works for that.

I always say you need more outlets than you think.

we just put in 2 towers on either side of our long vanity and decided to put outlets in the tower(they're 42-48"tall-can't remember exactly). what i did was put an outlet on the back wall of the bottom 2 shelves(we don't have appliance garages-just single bottom drawer and doors with shelves on towers)...so can hide elctric toothbrushes, razors,etc, can plug in radio, can plug in hairdryer/flatiron,etc. if i dried my hair everysingle day and never unplugged my hairdryer i guess an outlet in drawer would be convenient... but, having outlet in tower is more versatile/accessible and with one on bottom 2 shelves, there's room for 8 plugs.
i also put one in our linen unit-for chargers or whatever, and there's one on wall...mainly for vacuum....

Thank you for these thoughts.

Busybee3, do your towers reach the ceiling? Ours won't so I'm trying to figure out what the tops should look like. Some sort of molding I guess.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sketch of Master

our ceiling right above the vanity is ~8ft due to a soffit to accomodate the roofline...the towers on the vanity are a couple of inches from the ceiling...i have cabinet crown molding(~4-5" size??)on the tops of the towers and matching crown on top of the linen unit which is not close to the ceiling because in that area the ceiling is cathedraled...looks really nice. i did order the 90"something ht for the linen unit and matched the towers in ht because i didn't want them to seem too short with the tall ceilings-that and the added crown looks just right to my eye!

I'm uncomfortable with leaving anything plugged into a drawer since a former neighbor's house burned down by leaving her curling iron plugged in (and turned off). So my choice was an outlet in a cabinet so that I could reach it easier to plug/unplug every day.

The sketch:

The center portion of the vanity looks too tight for comfort. I think 15" wide side cabinets will provide more than adequate storage space and give you more elbow room at the sink. In addition, you might do better to have side sconces on the cabinets, rather than a pendant.

Are you sure you need a custom vanity? We just did a design very similar to yours -- twin towers, single sink, sconces on the sides of the towers -- and we were able to execute our plan with standard-order Kraftmaid cabinets ordered through Lowes.

I haven't had time to shoot and post photos of the finished (well, 99% finished) bathroom yet; here's a shot from mid-construction before the mirror, sconces, faucet and pulls went on:

For the top, you can see we ran a shelf across the tops of the towers, into which we cut three mini-recessed lights, and finished with simple crown molding.

(Maybe I'll get some finished pics up soon!)

-- Eric

Well, it's not a complete set of shots, but I just took a few quick ones this morning to better show how we did the vanity with side towers. The angles are a little distorted from the wide angle lens I used to get the whole thing in, and the coloring is a little orangeish because I shot without a flash (which messes things up with mirrors on facing walls). Hopefully, this gives you a better idea than the construction shot I posted above.

It's a little hard to show, but this attempts to capture the lighting I installed above and below the cabinets, which provides a soft nightlight.

-- Eric

Is this for one person or two? If two I would definitely go for two sinks.

Another vote for plugs not placed in drawers. While a friends house thankfully did not burn down, she did have a fire in her bathroom because of curling iron left in drawer (also turned off).

Lupine6, we don't ever use the bathroom at the same time so we don't want to bother with two sinks.

Eric, your vanity is stunning and I like the lighting. We are meeting with our contractor tonight and I am going to talk it through with him again.

I think I might have all of the outlets put in (drawer and tower) and then I can decide. Even if I use the drawer for my electric toothbrush, jewelry cleaner and Clarisonic instead of the blow dryer I will be happy to have them there.

To get the vanity custom made will not be any more expensive than ordering. Our cabinetmaker is very reasonable and uses beautiful materials and extras like the quiet drawers.

the picture above of the vanity you're planning is very similar to ours in looks, except that our center part is quite abit wider w/ 2 sinks.

one thing i would also recommend (which shouldn't be a problem w/ custom) is flipflop your 'drawer' in base cabinet so that a real drawer is at bottom...no wasted space and you don't have to have the "fake drawer" or plain panel look. i'm so happy i did this---more storage!

Busybee3--(sorry to hijack Jenskitchen) Can you explain the "drawer flipflop" and bit better? I can't picture it in my head. We're about to design our custom vanity for new master.

Also curious about the flipflop!

hi breezygirl,

if you look at jen's drawing and the pictures of eric's vanity you will see in the sink base that there is a drawer panel at the top of the cabinet... you end up with a tall cabinet space under your sink and a drawer 'panel' which is either left empty (no knobs) or fitted with a knob/handle to make it look like a real drawer. the other option is a tilt-out sponge tray, which are kindof gross.

i don't like the plain panel look (looks bare)and i'm not crazy about nonfunctional knobs so, the 2 other options are to have full length doors or have same size doors as a standard base cabinet directly under the counter and put in a real drawer underneath them so when you look at the cabinet it looks exactly like a regular sink base except the drawer is at the bottom rather than at the top---what i called 'flipfloped'!

under the sink storage is a pain because of the plumbing- you end up with alot of wasted space. this configuration provides more storage with a drawer plus plenty of room still under the sink.

Hi Jabose...very nice vanity and top! what kind of granite is it?

Wow. I had to read about flip flopping 3 times but now I get it and busybee3 is brilliant. Great idea!

I have to agree about the flip flopping being a brilliant idea! This might be a dumb question, but would you put a handle or knob on this drawer or leave it empty? Thanks!

Just to be clear, BusyBee's "flip flop" doesn't actually give you any more space; it just divides the space under the sink into a shorter cabinet with a drawer underneath. In the undivided cabinet, you can install shelves on the sides, a full shelf (cut out to go around the plumbing), and/or slide-out trays.

I had actually considered a drawer on the bottom, but I didn't like the aesthetics of how the door/drawer fronts lined up for us if the cabinet doors were at the top; I preferred having the row of drawers across the three base cabinets all line up underneath the counter. That might not be an issue with a smaller vanity with fewer drawers.

We debated whether to put a fake drawer pull on the dummy panel under the sink; we did that in our smaller guest bathroom, but opted not to do it here because there are so many drawers and doors.

(In order for the bottom drawer to work, your plumbing has to be coming through the wall behind the vanity, at a height above where the bottom drawer would go. That's typically the case, but sometimes the plumbing might be in the floor, or come through the wall close to the floor, and that doesn't allow for a drawer unless you heavily modify the drawer to wrap around the plumbing.)

-- Eric

P.S. Oh, Shosh65, it's a honed granite called Sunset Lether Creme. We went to a lot of granite yards, but have only seen this in one place. The honed or "leather" ("lether") look is really different when you're used to seeing all shiny granite. We loved the finish as well as the colors and veining.

I, too wanted to avoid a dummy drawer at the top of the undersink cabinet, but ended up with a vessel sink so it wasn't as much of an issue. But I did want to avoid those little cabinet doors under the sink so had mine made full height. When the doors are open you can see into the back of the cabinet without having to stand on your head. I had a small drawer installed at the top of the space, inside the cabinet, just because there is room (the cabinet maker hasn't actually installed it yet. I also had pull out drawers put in at the bottom of the cabinet so I could get at all the stuff at the back (also still not installed. No pics of the guts, but I really like the look of the taller doors.

I put in an appliance garage but don't find the cord tangle a problem, however, I don't use the dryer often. The sonicare, the jewelry cleaner get used most often and don't get pulled out of the cabinet.

I added two filler cabinets that will be outfitted for jewelry storage, hidden and convenient.

yes, i put a handle on the two lower drawers...(i did opposite of olychick---handles on drawers, knobs on doors.)

yes, if you have 3 drawer config (rather than 4 equal sized drawers) in your drawer stack, you lose the symetry of all the drawers being across the top and if you choose 3 drawer bases rather than 4, you don't have size symetry across the bottom. i prefer the larger sized drawers of the 3drawer bases, so chose them. the lack of symetry really doesn't bother me (and i REALLY like symetry!!!) i also think i prefer the additional drawer rather than trying to put in some type of 1/2 shelf, etc. in the sink base...
we also have the centersink bases and drawer bases bumped out abit (about 3 inches)like eric does with the angled filler pieces to add interest to both the vanity base and the granite, so that helps with possible plumbing issues...we might have had an issue with the sink drain had i not chosen to do this...lucky move!

our vanity is config: 18" 3 drawer base -30"drawer on bottom sink base-18" 3 drawer base -30" drawer on bottom sink base - 18" 3drawer base.

busybee can you show us pics of your upside down drawer.it sounds really interesting :0)
thks!

Wow, Olychick your bathroom is so well done and beautiful. You must be enjoying it immensely. Love your cabinetry ideas.

will try to this weekend.

OlyChick -- what a beautiful bathroom! How wide is your vanity?

Three things we really wanted with our new vanity:

1. Kitchen-height counters
2. Soft-close drawers and cabinet doors
3. Curved cabinets and counters fronting both sinks

Two things we really wanted to avoid:

1. Outlets in drawers
2. Towers or anything heavy beside or above the vanity

Here is a link that might be useful: Master bathroom renovation underway...

Sonic,
I'm curious as to why you not only didn't want, but really wanted to avoid outlets in the drawers?

Besides just not liking the eventual tangle of cords and cables shoved in a drawer, our electrical contractor advised against drawer outlets in vanities or any structure near a pooled water source.

He mentioned the risk of failing inspection and breaking code 400.8, where flexible cords and cables cannot be used as a substitute for fixed wiring.

Moreover, he said water eventually gets inside the drawer, and it can drip down cords and short stuff out.

There is an obvious fire hazard/risk since devices get hot, especially dryers and curling irons left on, which can scold and mar wooden drawers.

Extension cords between the drawer and wall eventually wear out or tangle, impeding drawer operation. Our general contractor said our soft-close vanity drawers may not operate correctly with electrical cords rigged between the drawer and wall outlet.

Further, vanity wall outlets must be GFCI and they do eventually trip, so drawers with rigged outlets often make it very difficult to reset the wall GFCI outlet behind the drawer, unless even more wiring in the wall is performed further upstream, etc.

For these reasons, drawer outlets just don't make much sense to us.

Here is a link that might be useful: Master bathroom renovation underway...