Looking for bathroom cabinet ideas

[mschrank]

Our bathroom remodel is starting to wrap up.

The LOML insisted on double pedastal sinks. This leaves about a 30" space between the sinks.

Given that we're losing all the storage we previously had in the vanities, I'm thinking I want to build a tall cabinet (floor to ceiling: 8') between them. An open shelf or two on the bottom, his/her drawers, and some doors above. I don't want to use medicine cabinets above the sinks, as there's no room to recess them and I don't like the look of surface mount. So this cabinet would also serve that role.

My problem is that I've never actually seen anything like this, and I'm having problems coming up with proportions/dimensions.

A lot of cabinet companies offer "linen cabinets," but these aren't quite what I'm after.

This drawing shows the basic idea....I guess I'd just like to see a real one before I make up the final plans and starting hacking at wood.

Have any of you seen what I want?

[ragswl4]

This is kind of a tough one. I'm not sure about a floor to ceiling cabinet as this might dwarf the two sinks and not look quite right. That's just a guess as it is difficult to visualize how it would look without seeing the sinks and what else is in the bathroom.

It is a unique problem and I cannot remember seeing this configuration in any bathrooms or magazines. We are building a house and we have tons of magazines for kitchens, baths, etc. I'll take a look through them and see if there are any possible solutions/designs that might work.

[mschrank]

This is kind of a tough one. I'm not sure about a floor to ceiling cabinet as this might dwarf the two sinks and not look quite right. That's just a guess as it is difficult to visualize how it would look without seeing the sinks and what else is in the bathroom.

It is a unique problem and I cannot remember seeing this configuration in any bathrooms or magazines. We are building a house and we have tons of magazines for kitchens, baths, etc. I'll take a look through them and see if there are any possible solutions/designs that might work.

Yeah, I agree about the height. Maybe I'll drop it away from the ceiling a bit.

I've found that this is indeed a unique problem, which kind of surprises me. I'd imagine there are hundreds of bathrooms out there with double pedestal sinks...and if you have a pedestal sink you need adjacent storage.

Here's another sketch with the cabinet in the bathroom:

[ironhat]

I like your design and probably would not go to the ceiling. Too monolithic. I usually scavange the cardboard recycling bin for big sheets to mock up a (very) rough scale model of what I'm building so I can actually see it and move about it for sizing as well as scale. Just a thought.

[drumpriest]

U-bild has something like that for a bathroom...

http://www.u-bild.com/projects-indoor/915.htm

But yours looks good, no reason to not go with it. I agree with the rest here that to the ceiling might be a bit much, how high can you reach? also coming down a few inches will eliminate any problems with the ceiling.

[mpc]

From your "installed" sketch it looks like there isn't much room between the mirrors and the walls on either side of them. If there is though, an option I'd suggest is making the upper storage area separate from the lower one - leave a small gap between them; and then use similarly colored wood to radiate outwards from the upper cabinet to surround the mirrors. Make the upper cabinet and mirrors look like one big piece. If there is room between the mirrors and side walls you can add narrow drawers (even fake ones as a fasade) or some fluted trim piece to dress things up.

Then to cover the height mismatch between the upper cabinet and the mirror tops you could fill in that "blank area" above the mirrors with a boxed-area covering individual light assemblies and extend the upper cabinet molding to across the tops of these boxes - i.e. wall to wall.

just an idea... I tend to like horizontal/wide shapes more than tall vertical shapes.

mpc

[ragswl4]

From your "installed" sketch it looks like there isn't much room between the mirrors and the walls on either side of them. If there is though, an option I'd suggest is making the upper storage area separate from the lower one - leave a small gap between them; and then use similarly colored wood to radiate outwards from the upper cabinet to surround the mirrors. Make the upper cabinet and mirrors look like one big piece. If there is room between the mirrors and side walls you can add narrow drawers (even fake ones as a fasade) or some fluted trim piece to dress things up.

Then to cover the height mismatch between the upper cabinet and the mirror tops you could fill in that "blank area" above the mirrors with a boxed-area covering individual light assemblies and extend the upper cabinet molding to across the tops of these boxes - i.e. wall to wall.

just an idea... I tend to like horizontal/wide shapes more than tall vertical shapes.

mpc

I like the idea of making the mirrors and upper cabinet appear to be one piece and the lighting. The long narrow vertical cabinet in the sketch seems to make the room look smaller. Perhaps the idea with the upper cabinet with the mirrors integrated and then a lower, separate cabinet at the same height or slightly below the sinks may give the room the appearance of being larger. Leaves a little open area horizontally above the two sinks and the mirrors to kind of break up two cabinets. Just a thought.

[mschrank]

Those are some great ideas...I'll play around with the idea of separating the upper & lower assemblies and integrating the mirrors a bit in Sketchup. I haven't made mirrors yet, so I can accomodate a different size.

mpc-You're right that there doesn't appear to be much room around the mirrors in that second sketch. I had drawn the bathroom several months ago and simply inserted the cabinet sketch into it. When I did the original bathroom drawing, I was planning on a narrower cabinet.

If anyone else feels like chiming in on this, I'd be happy the hear more viewpoints!!