Bathroom Vanity

[oldhudson]

My wife decided we're going to re-do the main bathroom in our. One step is to build a vanity. I thought I could post pics and some narrative if anyone wants to follow along. All the hard work is done. I made a design she approves of, she's told me the color and finish she looking for and I've been able to duplicate that on test pieces. Let me know here if anyone is interested (I know this is a scroll saw forum and this project doesn't use a scroll saw).

Edited June 11, 2014 by oldhudson

[amazingkevin]

No problem BARRY ,post in the "other woodwork's''forum and lets see what you got !

[oldhudson]

I started, as I do on most projects, by creating a design. There were two overriding factors for design. First while we are re-doing the bathroom we are keeping all the walls and not moving any plumbing. So that pretty much dictates the overall size. Second, we wanted a more ‘modern’ look/feel.

 

I use Trimble SketchUp (aka Google SketchUp) for this kind of design work. It’s a free CAD software that Google developed. It is flexible, accurate and not hard to learn. There are loads of tutorials on YouTube. This post contains 2D images although all the models are actually done 3D. I made 5 models before we were happy.

 

 

When the model is complete I use the dimensions to create a cut list.

 

  

 

Materials  – I decided on poplar for the face frame and drawer fronts. My local Home Depot has a good selection of poplar and it’s priced fairly. For the case pieces I’m using ¾ birch veneer core. For the drawers Home Deport sells a 5/8†pine-like wood from Brazil. Finally, ¾†pine for the stretchers. And reeded glass for the door panels.

 

JOINERY – I use a combination of glue, dowels, pocket screws plus tongue and groove joinery for this type of project. I use dowels and glue for the doors. Pocket screws and glue for the face frame. To attach the face frame to the case I use a tongue and groove system. With a router I cut tongues on the lead edge of case pieces and grooves on the back of the face from. For assembly I use hidden pocket screw joinery. Stretchers and the nail rail have tongues cut to fit into the case sides too.

 

 

So that's as far as I've gotten I'll post more next week. Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Travis]

That looks great!  I can't wait to see it come together.

[oldhudson]

So I thought I’d cover a couple things today on this vanity build.

 

I’m sure you could see that I had cross cut and ripped the face frame members to size. Nothing special there, but I thought I’d mention how I cut the PW case parts.

 

My shop is pretty small and in the lower level of the house so I always rough cut sheet goods to approximate size in the garage. Then I take them to the shop and cut to final dimensions.

 

I have a cutting table I set up in the garage for this. It’s made from 2 x 4’s and put together with half lap joint and supported by a couple of saw horses.  (all the pics of the cutting table were taken last year, that's why there is no snow on the drive or out the back door)

 

 

I’ve marked all the pieces for assembly and marked them with orange paint and I’ve painted the floor so it’s easier to position the saw horses.

 

 

When I’m done the whole comes apart and stores in a corner.

 

 

I lay the PW on the table face side down, the cutting is done with a track saw. I have Eureka Zone’s but DeWalt, Festool and others sell them. I like the Eureaka  Zone because you use your existing circular saw.  Sorry no pictures.

 

I said in my last post that I was using tongue and groove joinery to attach the face frame to the cabinet. That’s worth talking about. All the cuts are made on a router table. There are two key elements. First, cutters for the tongue and groove are a matched set.

 

 

Second, the cutters come with a rubber grommet. The grommet slides down to the bottom of the collet and the shank of the cutter rests on the grommet, when the collet nut is tightened the grommet compresses a bit. But what grommet allows is for the two cutters to be switched back and forth, and this is the key, without adjusting the height of the router.

 

In this image the cabinet is face down on the assembly table. The case pieces and just resting in the tongues of the face frame members. Nothing is glued or screwed together but that little T&G joint holds everything nicely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oldhudson]

Vanity project continued and on-going….

 

So boys and girls you probably wondered what in the heck happened and why isn’t it moving on?

 

Much of what I’ve done wouldn’t come under the heading of woodworking much less scroll work so I’ve taken no pics. I removed a suspended ceiling. I took out the old shower door and sold that on CL. I had to remove a portion of the tile in the shower/tub. I suppose the ‘right’ thing to do was to take it all off and replace the “blue board†with “cement board†but I took the short-cut and just removed the tile my dear wife thought dated the room. Of course I punched through the wall had had to do some repair.

 

I removed the old vanity, sink, (one of the shut-off valves was ‘frozen’ so I had to cut that off) the ceramic tile from the floor and took out the sub-floor. The new sub-floor is in place and the new tile (an Armstrong vinyl tile) goes in this weekend. Phew!

 

I spent considerable time and effort trying to get a rich dark look out of poplar. Some of the edges didn’t accept stain very well and I’m disappointed but I’m not planning on starting over.

 

In these pics you see the progression as I added stains/finish. I used the same light for all the pics. Schedule: garnett shellac, old masters cedar, java 2-coats, GF polyacrylic 3-coats.

 

 

The drawers are nearly done. I make machine cut dovetails. Here's a pic of the large drawer, 42" wide and a couple shots of a small drawer and joinery detail.

 

 

 

 

[amazingkevin]

I am beyond impressed, You sir, are a ships right carpenter! The best around.!You have gone the extra mile for each and every piece you've shown us.You  make it look simple, but i can assure you it's not.It all has to fit together the first time.I believe NASA could you some of your talent!Your having fun doing this project but i would be lost after the first cut.Very very well professionally done :thumbs: :thumbs: :thumbs:

[LarryEA]

Well, I'm amazed. That's great carpentry, very impressive what you are doing.

[oldhudson]

My next step was to assemble the face frame using glue and pocket screws. When that was completed I could measure and cut the faux drawer fronts. Here's a pic of the face frame with the drawer fronts cut and in place - without any finish yet.

Then I moved on to the hinges. I'm using Blum 'clip' hinges for inset doors with a face frame. I got them from Rockler. I started by measuring and marking the doors and face frames to add the hinges. These hinges require a 35mm hole to hold the hinge. Here my  set up to drill the cups and one drilled out.

The portion of the hinge that rests in the door are then attached with screws.

After the doors are done the portion that attached to the face frame need to be mounted. I have a little jig I made that gives the lines up with the center mark I made earlier and then spaces the two screw mounting locations. Here's the jig. I don't know if you can see it but taped on a small piece of wood because these holes are to be drilled at a 12 degrees. I use a vix bit to postion the pilot holes.

Here's a pic of the back of the face frame. The line with the magenta circle is my center mark. Notice the "U" shaped pencil mark nearby. (The jig adjusts in and out a few mm and at some point I must have bumped or dropped it and the jig was out-of-square. so one of the pilot holes was off.) I overdrilled the hole with a 1/8" bit, glued in a dowel and re-drilled the pilot after the repair dried. I think you can see the patch.

 

Finally here's a pic with both portions of the hinges but without them clipped together.

 

And don't forget to wish your Dad a Happy Father's Day. I suppose Father's Day is only celabrated in the US??? But it doesn't matter where you are give your Dad a hug, or a high-five or sit down and have a beer with him - if you can. I lost my Dad 12 years ago and miss him more as time goes on.

 

 

[Travis]

Boy, that's turning out nice!

[oldhudson]

Here's a couple more pictures of the vanity. I have a couple of runs/drips that I didn't see when I put on the last coat. So I've spent time trying to fix this. I promise more pics when I get the repair done.

 

I felt certain when I started this project that I could stain the poplar to look something close to mahogonay but this has been tough. Poplar doesn't accept stain very well, or at least it hasn't for me.

 

The doors have a glass panel instead of wood. Just trying something different. We chose 'reeded' glass and then I painted the backs silver and then white - trying to get a little 'bling'.

 

Finally, you can see the clips I used to hold the glass in place. Between the clip and glass is a thin piece of material used to hold runs in place so the don't slide/slip on wood floors.

 

I driving down to Chicago for a couple days. I have a friend whose terminally ill and I thought a visit would be good. Wish me luck I never know what to say to people in that situation.