We have just a bit over that in our new bath. It’s definitely not desirable if you have better options, but we decided it was workable for us and worth the tradeoff for more space elsewhere. Our original plan gave us ~37” between the vanity and shower with a 42” wide adjacent closet, but we decided after demo (and setting everything up with boxes!) to give the additional space to the closet (which was 3’ x 7’ with the door on the short side pre-remodel, and is now 4’x7’ with the same door since we could not move that). While it would be nice to have the added space in the walkway, I really love the improved closet space and don’t think I’d give that up at this point. (Also, our whole house is small and the existing bath only has 24” between tub and pedestal sink—designed that way 100+ years ago!—so 32” feels almost spacious! In a large house, it might feel more problematic.) 18” is already pretty shallow for a vanity, so I wouldn’t go any less deep than that. Can you potentially put it on a different wall?

Thanks artemis! My house is small, built in the 50's. I do not have any other wall to put the vanity. There is one other option, however, I would have to steal real estate from the bedroom. But here is the problem with that, right now I only have one large bedroom, the rest of the bedrooms are in the basement. I was thinking I might someday want to turn the large one bedroom back into two smaller ones and I would hate to lose any bedroom space because of that. I wish I could see what 30" would look like.

Can you tape it out on the floor to try walking it? I found it most helpful to move in some actual furniture or boxes that were about the right height to test the volume of what a vanity would feel like. I figure if we absolutely hate it after living with it, we can always take out the vanity and put in a pedestal sink with a shallow cabinet/counter next to it to free up more space. Our situation was similar in that we really couldn't afford to take space from the bedroom, though that was generally the solution proposed. It's only 12' x 12' to start with as the "master" bedroom, so making it any smaller was a non-starter (and $$$ given the changes involved to do so).

That is a good idea artemis, thanks! I will try some boxes. Is yours 32" away? If so, how do you feel about it now? I know you said it was not idea, but does it look okay? I think you and I are in the same boat and sounds like we are not expecting a lot with our small rooms in our old houses, but you know I still love the older homes, better than the new ones. Unless I was rich and got to design my own.😊

We are frustratingly still not done so I can only speak to it hypothetically--we aren't actually using the bathroom yet. But happy to update this when we finally are (hopefully in July!) To my eye it looks fine. But honestly our existing bathroom looks normal to me too since it is a pretty common layout in older homes in our area, and it is clearly much tighter than anyone would build today.

The last thing that would have worked well for ours but wasn't in our budget was to do a bumpout and recess the vanity into that space. Also something to consider if it's feasible for your budget and your space.

Ideal is 36" but sometimes compromises have to be made to make it work. I had a 30" space between my tub and shower door in my condo and it was fine.

Houzz, stalker that it is, thought I would like to look at this lovely bathroom (sadly not mine!) that someone recently added. You can tell from the tile sizing that the space here is 36" between vanity and tub, and then narrows to something tighter than that between the end of the pony wall and toilet (guessing right around 30'). If you can imagine the tub 6" closer to the vanity, it might give you a sense of what it would look like visually.

2022 Bungalow Bathroom & Powder room · More Info

You might be able to find a cabinet maker who could make the exact size you want. Sometimes they are not much more expensive than a quality ready made one.

As Jeanne Cardwell suggested, talk to a custom cabinet maker. He should be able to make whatever size cabnit you need

We bought a small retirement house. Our main bath is quite small. We only have 27 inches between the tub and vanity.

Minimum is 24" between tub and other obstructions so 30 should be adequate given your limitations. How wide is your bathroom door opening?

Thank you Everyone! Deb and Artemis, the pictures help! Jeanne and Jlhug, I was thinking of calling one today, but to get that wide of a cabinet, it would probably be hard to get it much narrower than 18" with the sink and faucet. I will try though. Can I ask your opinion? If I get it custom, how wide would you go? The toilet in the tub will be on one side, so I have the width on the other side. I was thinking 36" but than I have empty not used space on the one side, should I go to 48"?

Palimpsest, the bathroom door opening is 24".

The challenge is that once you get down to 12" deep (or even 15" deep) for a vanity, your sink options are extremely limited, so I don't know how much a custom cabinet would necessarily help on that front (apart from getting you something you like stylistically). Personally I'd rather have at least 18" deep to have a more functional sink and just live with the 30" clearance. For ours we stuck with a standard depth vanity because it's the only storage in the room apart from a medicine cabinet, and losing the 3" by dropping to an 18" vanity wasn't worth the extra clearance for me. if you post your layout you might get some other creative solutions, though.

It is not too bad. It gets me excited to do mine now. Looking nice and thanks Artemis for still thinking of me.