How I Made a Simple Floating Vanity Look Expensive

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Beautiful.

[00:00:16]So, here's the plan. So, the plan is to build  a vanity that looks like it's floating. A sink with a benchtop that's looking straight on  and then the taps will be mounted to the wall.

[00:00:27]And we've also got a window behind here just to  complicate things. And if you look at it side on, that's coming out about 400 mm. So in order for  this heavy weight to be supported out here and still look floating, we need some brackets.  And these are the brackets here. That's 10 mil thick stainless steel. This is heavy.  This is very heavy. And we got three holes here. And we're going to bolt that into the  stud. And I'll show you how we do that. Now, I know I can't get this across in a video,  but these are so heavy. I think they're the heaviest part of this whole vanity, which  there's an irony there. The brackets that are there to hold the thing up are the  heaviest thing. So, they kind of need to hold themselves up. I don't know. But the bolts  will hopefully do the job. So, really, it's the bolt doing all the work. It's all on the bolt.  Try pulling that out. Ah, see the test worked.

[00:01:26]You could jump on that. Yeah, even with  just one bolt. Even with one bolt. But should we put more in? Save money. How many  brackets have you bought? Three. And how much did they cost? It doesn't matter. No. No.  How much do they cost? Over $500. Just I I feel like sometimes forget people forget  just how expensive New Zealand is. Anyone?

[00:02:00]Now, if there's one to bugger up, at least we got one to trace it. If it's  a bugger. Yeah, it's a good template.

[00:02:12]Look at that. Eh, check all this out. This is this kind of timberu.  It's great timber because my house is built out of it. It's also the most common secondhand  native New Zealand timber you can find, which means we can get our hands on some of  it. And it matches my window sash nicely.

[00:02:37]See that's the ceda and that's the rem. But  as you can see that's all pretty rough saw.

[00:02:46]Now at first getting a hold of this stuff  like stuff in this condition was pretty difficult actually. There's local companies  that specialize in demolition and they get a hold of this stuff and the best thing for them  to do is to mill into floorboards. That's how they make the most money per meter. Whenever you  want something that's larger than a floorboard, it's really hard to get that timber. But  thanks to my friend John at Nelson Builders, I managed to get a bunch of it. And John  also put me on to a company locally that has a foursided milling machine. Try and do it  myself, but this is going to save me so much time.

[00:03:46]It's looking really nice. I  don't know if you can hear me, but it's looking really nice. I can't believe  it goes in one pass like that. It's crazy.

[00:03:58]Look at that.

[00:04:02]Beautiful.

[00:04:06]Yeah. Well, I was thinking that's how we put  the bench top together. So, we have a Domino here today and we also have Shane. Yeah,  he brought his domino. That would have been useful yesterday when I used that biscuit jointer.  Well, you can compare, you know, you you'll decide whether it's just stick with a biscuit joiner or  stick with something that actually works. Nothing wrong with that, right? No, there's nothing  wrong with that. That's where we all start.

[00:04:33]Yeah. But look, you're going to use this today  and you're going to fall in love. Got grain going that way and then that way and then that way.  Yeah. No, see this is not your This is not your typical Okay. So, that milling that we did that  didn't really straighten it. It's kind of like a thicknesser. You put it through, it just pins it  all into place, makes a nice clean cut, and then when it comes out the other side, it springs  back. So, we don't have straight lines here, which is unfortunate. And I don't have a jointer,  but just like the Domino, Shane does have that, too. I have a semi-sharp jointer. Semi-sharp.  It's got to be better than no jointer.

[00:05:23]Every time I come to Shane's workshop, I think  we need to do a tour of the Shane's workshop.

[00:05:40]Heat. Heat.

[00:05:59]I brought one.

[00:06:02]Look at that. Get a joint. Yeah.

[00:06:17]Shane's just realized. Look at  this. The the downside of pesto.

[00:06:25]It's good, you know, having an unplugged  system, but then if you don't have the cord, how do you get it to work? Let's open up.  We're about to domino all this together. Oh, that's so bad. Doesn't have a cord.  And I don't have any festal stuff.

[00:06:44]What would solve this problem if I own the  festival dominant? Yes. Okay. You know, I've got like 15 at home cords. Okay. There's  so many of them. They're just like, you know, Shane and I are just having one of  those days battling with the reamer, realizing just how imperfect it is and how hard it  is to work. Every time we run a blade through it, it chips. It's hard to sand straight.  Now, I've got this bench top and there's an imperfection on every single board. And I'm  trying to position things where maybe the sink will cover the imperfections. It might do in the  case of one of these boards, but not everywhere.

[00:07:32]Shane forgot the cable. We had to shoot back to  Shane's already in order to put an edge on all these boards. Funny we thought of the cable  then. 5 years of having a cord in your car.

[00:07:45]Never use it and you need it. It's not in  there. We're persevering. That's right.

[00:08:16]Yeah, moment.

[00:08:37]Wow.

[00:08:41]Okay, the Domino didn't get it perfect. It got  it pretty good, but the timber had kinks in it, so it can't fight timber when it's that  thick. Right. Still a good tool, though. So, there's a bit of planing to do. There you go.  See little little lips. This is the high point.

[00:09:16]So, it took a lot of planning, thought,  and research to figure this benchtop out.

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[00:10:31]Oh, man.

[00:10:49]I've sanded it with 80 grit and it's looking  very flat now. And I had to flip over and do the other side. Look at that. Can  you see that? It's pretty straight.

[00:11:02]It dips off in that corner there, but I think  we're going to cut that off. That's about when I'll be where I'll be putting a plant. So, I  got advice from my friend Torston who works for Nelson Builders. He has been doing a lot  of work with this timber uh on their jobs.

[00:11:17]Through trial and error, he's found that the  best option is belt sanding with the grain, but constantly moving the belt sander and  going no higher than 120 grit for Osmo.

[00:11:30]They did a benchtop and they sanded up to  320, 350 or something. And the problem with that is it created like a impenetrable sheen  on the timber and then when they put the oil on the oil just peeled off later. Didn't sink  in. Didn't grab it. And this is specific to specific to cuz a lot of natural resins in it  and naughty grain as you've seen can be a bit of a pain to work with. Who knows? But this is  what I'm doing. I've got it to 80. I'm going to put a 120 grit roll on there. Sand it again  with the grain until it's nice and smooth.

[00:12:17]And let's see if our steel  brackets can take the weight easily. All right. Let's not touch my timber  frame for now. Okay. I think it's a bit too big. What do you think? Yeah, it is too big.  It's hard to film in here cuz it's so dark, but on the camera it looks really dark. In person  it looks mint. It does. And yeah, it's too big cuz I mean it's a tiny bathroom, right? We just  banged into each other. I think we might be able to make it small without being able to see  the bracket. It looks so cool. It looks so good.

[00:13:05]So, I've got some epoxy in there to  fill some of the imperfections. And I tried to mix it better this time,  so it's a bit more wood colored.

[00:13:38]Look at this. Look at that grain popping. Yeah, boy. And I think this stuff is  turned out pretty good, too.

[00:14:11]Whoa.

[00:14:21]Hey. Heat.

[00:14:42]Heat.

[00:15:15]They fade God, it's so lush. And then look at the ones where the mirror will be. Yeah. You  in focus? Uh, I think so. And then look, I can either go like full brightite. Yeah.  Or vibes or 100% vibes. I love it. It's Yeah.

[00:15:50]Now I really do match the bathroom so much. So nice. So nice. I love these like  slow phase on lights. So these three lights was the idea of the lighting designers at Switch  Lighting who sponsored all of our lighting for free. So yeah, thank you so much to Switch. So  the reason that we picked Switch was actually we did the whole living kitchen well before  they were ever sponsoring us because they're all made locally here in Nelson and they also  have this incredible showroom where you can go in see all the different color temperatures, all  the different phases, etc. and they show you how the color temperature, you know, warm or cool,  can actually change the color of a room. So, this is the thing with this color. We know it's  a bold choice. We wanted to do bold. And I keep laughing at the comments that say I should have  just done a white and a large tile. It's like, okay, first of all, white large tile is not the  timeless timeless classic look that you think it is. It was a trend. It was minimalism. It was huge  15 years ago. And now, you know, like all trends, we're moving into something else. And that's not  to say you should follow trends. you should just do exactly what you want. And for us, we shower  in the evening as a time to wind down for bed. So, we don't want this like bright sterile space.  We wanted something cozy and moody that will sort of get you a bit sleepy and ready to go to  sleep. And I'm so happy with it. I I love it. So, another thing that Switch Lighting recommended for  us was these lights are going to shine in to the mirror like we'll angle them into the mirror  and then that reflects the light back which illuminates the room. but it also illuminates  your face evenly. So, what a lot of people do is they'll get a light, shine it into their face,  but that actually creates a lot of shadow when you're looking into the mirror, which is hard  when you're doing makeup or whatever. However, Switch told us if you shine the lights into the  mirror and then it evenly reflects back onto your face. So, yeah, th those sort of tips,  the fact that they create the lighting plan, amazing. It helped us out so much cuz lighting  is not something that we are experts on by any means. And I think this is perfect. You might  notice something's missing. We don't have any glass. We will. And we But we have to get a custom  piece fitted with a door in the center. The door isn't on, for instance. There's no door to this  bathroom. Like Jess said, there's no glass for the shower. We will be doing that. And there's no  cabinet here. We had toilet paper in mind. Look at that. So, we got enough room for the door and then  the backboard of the cabinet. Well, there you go.

[00:18:23]The bench top is done. It floats. It works.  It's not connected on the side here. Look, there's a gap there. There's a gap at the back  as well. And it's just a few mil off this window frame. Completing the floating look. And one  thing I'm very relieved by is I'm clearly on the toilet here. I was worried that sitting on this  toilet I would look over and see the brackets, but I don't. There we go. That's my view from the  L. Didn't think I'd say that in a video. You have to really crouch down to see the brackets. And  when you're up here, you can see a bit of the bottle trap, but that's why we got this beautiful  brush nickel one. And it goes out to a pipe, which ultimately goes out under the house and  into somebody else's problem. Some people ask why we have plumbing pipes outside here in New  Zealand. It doesn't really get that cold here.

[00:19:10]All our plumbing pipes are exposed. They're under  the house, ventilated under the house. It's not sealed. exposed to the cold and they never freeze  or break in our case. It does get pretty cold down the bottom of the South Island, but we live up  at the top. Oh yeah, and we have a window here.

[00:19:30]And then if you're dying for one and the  window's open, you can just dive under there from the backyard. Okay. Is it Jess's beautiful  garden? No, you're really just looking at the outdoor shower. And that is going to be there  for a little bit longer than we had planned.

[00:19:45]Hear that seal? Out of the options of frosted  glass that we had, this was our favorite. It looks the most natural. But we were concerned  about privacy. So, let's give that a test.

[00:19:58]Can you see it? As long as you don't do that,  it's pretty private. So, we still need to get a custom glass door. We need to finish off  the cabinetry here. We need to install our very meaty ventilation system. And we also need  a door. Yeah, that would be useful. However, we can't do any of these things right now  because we need to take another break from the renovation because we're in Japan. We're  in Japan. Look, Tokyo station. Japan. It's right there. We're here. One part. We're not  staying here. No. Should we catch a train? Yeah.

[00:20:44]Scott Brown here. You know, they say  that people choose the interior paint colors they like based on the clothing  that they like. Jess, where did Jess go?