DIY Double Sink Console

This is the vanity that came with the house. An Ikea special that was meant for a kid's bathroom, which worked great for me at 5'2", but was kind of a pain in the lumbar for the husband.

We'd talked about replacing it for a while, but debated whether we needed two sinks. I personally love bathroom vanities that look like furniture with sinks plopped on top. Like this one, which became the inspiration for our console:

photo credit; Pottery Barn

But, I'm way too tight with a buck to shell out for one of them. Fortunately, they aren't that difficult (though they are time consuming) to make.
We started out with this old sideboard that I bought at a local thrift store for 45 bucks. The only issue was getting it home, since we drive a very small sedan. We actually wound up walking it home on a homemade furniture dolly, which was made more comical by the fact that we were brand spankin' new newlyweds and still trying to figure out how to work together. It was a very long 5 blocks, but fortunately our marriage survived.

Awesome picture quality...sorry.

The two deep cabinets on each side were perfect for housing the sink plumbing and that still left three generous sized drawers for toiletry and towel storage.

Then, we needed sinks. The cool pre-plumbed ones that look like weird bowls were kind of pricey (are you noticing a pattern here?) so we picked up these two porcelain pasta bowls at Target for 20 bucks each and husband drilled a drain hole in the bottom of each. That's what a sink is, right? A porcelain bowl? We decided to inset the bowls a bit, so that we wouldn't be stuck choosing a swan-neck type faucet.

Unfortunately, the suckers wouldn't fully drain. It turns out that a sink is a porcelain bowl that has been shaped to actually drain at the bottom. Duh. Back to Lowes. We found overmount Aquasource sinks that worked perfectly for about 40 bucks each.

This was the scary part-hacking up a perfectly good sideboard.

The faucets we picked up at Home Depot for 68 dollars each. They're "Toomba" by Glacier Bay.

photo credit: thehomedepot.com

Here's the fun part: actually plumbing these things in. This is where having an enormously talented and very, very accomodating spouse comes in handy. This definitely was not a quick task, and I am eternally grateful that I married someone who has the know-how and guts to slice through sheetrock and sauter copper pipes.

Here's the result:

I am going to cry when we have to leave this behind.

And here it is with a few finishing touches:

So, the approximate cost of our double sink console, minus the "oops" with the original bowls:

• sideboard $45
• Aquasource sinks $80
• faucets $136
• plumbing sundries about $100 (cheaper if your bathroom is already plumbed for 2 sinks)
• grand total:about $360 (much, much cheaper than buying one pre-made)