New Basement Bathroom Vanity Ikea Style

If you are coming over from Apartment Therapy, welcome! My 114 year old house is glad to see you. Since you’ve probably read about my laminate cabinet makeover, feel free to read about all of my other projects in the gallery here. Find out more about my old house here.

Today we have another update in the ongoing basement bathroom renovation. Otherwise known as the longest bathroom renovation in the history of mankind.

This is a big one, we finally have a working sink.

We mastered the art of matching our American plumbing with the Canadian plumbing we bought at the closest Ikea {which is in Canada} and installed the faucet and vanity. Not saying the plumbing is specifically Canadian, we just didn’t know how things would work together, you know how crazy that Ikea stuff is.

Last we saw the bathroom, we had installed the new lights after our distressed plank wall went up.

In renovating this space, we knew we needed something really shallow depth-wise to fit into the space where the vanity and sink would be. The old one cut into the door frame and that just wasn’t the look we were going for. Ikea came to mind since they have different options than the standard sizes available otherwise and we knew they’d be within our budget.

Plus it’s just such an adventure going up there. It’s in a different country and all, us world travelers 🙂

We ended up getting the Lillangen cabinet, frame and sink. That line has all kinds of options. This is the sink cabinet with 2 doors and is only about 15 inches deep. Perfect for our space. We got the matching sink too, since they are all sold separately.

In my planning of this entire space {which was all in my head} I knew our accent plank wall would be white, so I opted for the brown/black cabinet. It was pretty simple to put together. How I love spending time with the little round Ikea man.

The adventure in this renovation comes with the installation. So pretend you didn’t see those lovely after photos and picture this.

Me, surrounded by all kinds of tools. A mirror ready to hang like we are almost finished with this reno {ha!}. My knee pads on cause clearly I do a lot of kneeling. All my instruction manuals at the ready. A tool belt thing. A faucet in my lap.

But what’s really going on inside my head is this.

What the heck are you trying to tell me little round Ikea dude in the pictures?

Sorry for the blur – night time DIY, you know.

Thankfully we did get this plumbing figured out. Do you know they make flexible plumbing these days? It’s a game changer. This way you don’t have to exactly line up the p-trap with the j-hook and the s-whatever. I’m making these up. Anyway, it was a happy moment when Dan was on his second trip to the store and found it.

So he finally got all the parts under there to connect like they were supposed to. It was kind of complicated at one point, we had three different sizes of pipes, stuff that belonged in a kitchen, not a bathroom, and too many washers to count.

Long story short – if you are looking to connect 1 1/2″ pipes to 1 1/4″ pipes, you do it with washers and that flexible piping, which they make for “downsizing”. We used the LASCO White Plastic Tubular 1-1/4-Inch Flexible Extendable Slip Joint Extension with Nut and Washer (affiliate link), which can be purchased at a home improvement store or on Amazon at the link above.

Since the pipes were a little more complicated than we expected, the shelf that came with the cabinet didn’t fit in exactly as it was supposed to. Dan cut a notch on the one side so it fit around the pipe and now it holds TP.

The sink is also Lillangen. This is a different size and shape of sink than any others we have in the house, so it’s a little fun to have it there. We tested the pipes and all is good! I love the little shelf it comes with and there are hooks for your towels.

The faucet is the Rorskar line and I installed it on my own. I’m getting quite good at the plumbing 🙂 After I had to take apart the sink upstairs, I definitely learned a thing or two.

The vanity ended up fitting perfectly so I could have a little garbage can on the floor, one that I picked up at the Target dollar spot. Just about everything in this space was a bargain.

Lastly, we got the mirror hung too. This is a DIY project that I will tell you a little about soon, but the room is finally coming together. All that’s left is the gaping hole on the other side of the space you see in the reflection of the mirror that will become the shower.