Vanity fair

Because there is not much space in the bathrooms, I needed vanities with ample storage. After a lot of searches across online, furniture, and home improvement stores, I kept getting back to the IKEA GODMORGON/ODENSVIK combo. I am not crazy about it, but it seems to have more usable drawer space than alternatives. I wish it had more interesting colors, but it is what it is. 

For the mirrors/wall cabinets, I originally planned to go with a recessed mount, but then saw the Maxstow 15 in. x 40 in. Frameless Surface-Mount Aluminum Medicine Cabinet by Kohler at a local Home Depot for half the price and instantly liked it.

Couldn't find any wall lights that I would like, so bought the 6-inch IKEA SVALLIS lamps thinking that I can always replace them later.

I managed to mess up vanities, too. Instead of ordering the high-gloss white version (to be consistent consistent with the kitchen wall and other cabinets), I ordered regular white (which were $170 per each cheaper but not what I wanted). And I did not notice until my contractor got both of them on the walls. Had to ask him to take them down, return to IKEA for the full refund (IKEA takes assembled units, so at least, did not need to disassemble), get the correct ones, and spend a few hours putting them together (in my defense, most of the time it took to correct the mistake was mine).*

A few words of caution about IKEA vanities. They are pretty well designed, come with all required parts, and look reasonably decent, but they are a pain to install. The reason why they have more usable drawer space (compared to non-IKEA vanities) is because they only allow about 4 inches of water pipes to extend from the wall. So if you decide to pick these or similar units, make sure your plumber does the prep work correctly, as outlined in these videos:

* Actually, I messed up the vanity installation twice. First, by ordering the wrong color cabinets. And then by having my contractor redo the backsplash. A backsplash has to be there by the building code, so I first wanted to use mosaic tile similar to the one I bought for the kitchen, but it looked odd, so I asked tile installer to make the backsplash from the shower tile, which he did (just as I asked). But then, the more I looked at it, the more I hated it (even though it matched the shower tile, it just did not look right). So I asked them to reuse the leftover quartz from the kitchen countertops (which meant additional work for my contractor and the tile guy). I do not particularly like it, but it is still better then the other two options. Again, the reason I bring these up is to help you learn from my mistakes and follow these rules:

1. Double check boxes and parts before your contractor installs their contents.
2. Before permanently attaching things (backsplashes, tile), try them out first and see how you like them.

NEXT: 50 SHADES OF BRUSHED NICKEL

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FIRST: INTRODUCTION