Bathroom Vanities

Also called dressing tables, bathroom vanities or bathroom vanity tables make up one type of bathroom furnishings available for your usage. Vanity is defined as taking pride in one's appearance or qualities to an extreme. How this word relates to the bathroom vanity may have to do with the primary function this piece of furniture has.

Most people, particularly women, employ vanities for applying make-up or for any other beauty regimen they might have. This may account for the furniture's name since keeping oneself beautiful does take a certain amount of pride and vanity.

Bathroom vanities come in different designs and materials and often come with a matching stool or bench. The most common material for this piece of furniture is wood, since it is constructed with a table-top, drawers and sometimes has a mirror. 

Wood vanities are often treated to withstand moisture since bathrooms are full of moisture  and wood tends to warp and deform if exposed to too much condensation.

Another type of bathroom vanity is the bathroom vanity that doubles as a sink stand. These are often built with a combination of materials, with a marble, tile or stone top that has an embedded sink in the middle and cabinets underneath.

These vanities may or may not come with a built in mirror and even if a mirror was included in the package of this type of bathroom vanity, usually, a stool or bench is absent from this composition since the underside of  this piece of furniture holds the p-trap or drainage system for the sink.

Bathroom vanities can be designed to mirror the bathroom's general atmosphere, with designs that can be ultra modern or old-world classic. Most prevalent, however, is the Victorian style vanities that have ornate carvings and antique finishes. These lend a rather nostalgic feel to the bathroom it is put into and come in certain classifications such as pedestal sinks, sink cabinets and the sinkless armoire type vanity table sets.

Pedestal Sink Vanities are mirrorless bathroom vanities that mimic the shape of its namesake. A pedestal Vanity has a sink in the middle and can either resemble a huge goblet or a birdbath, depending on your own personal choice. They often have a marble, granite or stone top and the fittings may be selected from a choice of brass, stainless or chrome, to name a few.

Sink cabinets or vanities that look like cabinets with a sink in the middle of it often look like they have been taken out of the pages of history books. With choices to be made between single or double types, these vanities usually have cabinet doors under the installed sinks and drawers for the division between sinks in the double sink classes. Finishes for these cabinets are rather varied with the more simple black or white and the rather popular antique and wood finishes included in the list. Some sink cabinets also come with a matching wall mounted mirror in the same design and color as the purchased sink cabinet vanity unit.

A spin-off of the sink cabinet type vanity is the vessel sink cabinet type. This vanity design is composed of a cabinet-like structure with a water-resistant top such as marble or ceramic and a bowl like sink placed on top. Unlike the previous sink cabinet design, this alternate choice does not have an embedded sink. Instead, the sink installation for this make is found mounted on the tabletop. This classification of the sink cabinet vanity has modern, minimalist designs patterned after Japanese influences as well as the old fashioned tables and basin arrangements used in the olden days before plumbing was invented.

The mirrored vanity, the type that does not come with a sink, can also be seen as your garden variety vanity table. This kind of vanity can also be seen in the bedroom, since it does not have any of the plumbing associated with the other vanity types available. Using materials like wrought iron and wood, these vanity tables are often finished in epoxy or is coated with chemicals that prevent it from corroding. These types also usually come with a matching padded bench that slips into a space under the table.

While there are a lot of bathroom vanity choices out in the market, with prices ranging from a reasonable $100.00 to a whopping thousands of dollars, creating your own vintage bathroom vanity is not too bad an idea.

Bathroom vanity kits are available for do-it-yourself enthusiasts and often come with step by step instructions for easy assembly. If you have an old dresser table or cabinet you think would make a good and stylish bathroom vanity, this project could work for you and you could then be the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind vanity that is both functional and cheap but fashionable.