Pine Bathroom Vanity and built-in shelves - very few power tools

This is the bathroom vanity I made about 4 years ago. First real project after my beginner classes. I was very sick of looking at the one that came with the house. At the time, I had a table saw and a plunge router…. and hand tools. Quite a challenge. I had the lumber source joint and plane the wood for me, but I did a lot of block planing to try to get all the pieces to be the same width. There was also a lot of sanding involved but it’s pine so it went easily enough. I don’t think I could ever recreate the jig I made on the workbench to router the edges of the doors/drawers… it was quite “creative”. I tried dovetail joints for the drawers – hand done so let’s just say there is a bit of variability in the results. But everything holds. The top drawer sticks a bit and I could fix it but it does not bother me too much. I was also in a mahogany stain craze and I used it on this, the shelf I made in beginner classes (a previous post) and the built-in open shelving I posted here. All pine (it’s the most economical thing up here) and all varnished with several layers of boat varnish.

I had a beginner’s design problem to solve. I thought the sink I was going to get would be different – ie it would cover the whole top just like my previous one. I could not find anything like it anymore! So, we decided to buy a smaller sink, tile around it to match the shower tiles, and I had to build up another layer of wood to create a lip and a backboard. Glue really works wonders! There are no nails or staplers at all in the vanity. I was considering it to be practice.

Lessons learned: Get the key pieces of hardware first because by the time you finish your project… it could be out of stock!!!

It’s a small bathroom. Don’t pay attention to the unfinished floor edges on the side. I have a to-do after moving a door this year to give the bathroom a bit more space…