Madison Elite Cabinets designs, builds and installs custom cabinets for homeowners across Madison, WI. The bathrooms in Madison’s older housing stock were designed when a bathroom was a utility, not a room. Five by eight feet was generous. The plumbing stack is where the plumbing stack is, the walls are plaster over lath, and the floor probably slopes toward the door.
All of which is workable. It just has to be planned for rather than discovered halfway through.
Measure the awkward things first
Before looking at any vanity, note:
- The distance from the finished wall to the centre of the drain, and the height of the drain above the floor.
- The supply line positions, which in older homes are frequently not centred or symmetrical.
- Whether the door swings into the vanity’s space.
- Radiator location and clearance.
- How much the floor is out of level across the vanity’s width.
A stock 36-inch vanity assumes a centred drain and a level floor. Old bathrooms routinely provide neither.
Size it to the room, not to a catalogue
Stock vanities come in 24, 30, 36 and 48 inch widths. Old bathroom walls come in whatever width they came in. Losing four inches to a filler in a 60-inch bathroom is a real loss.
This is where a made-to-size vanity earns its cost in a small bathroom — not for luxury, but because four extra inches of counter is meaningful when there are only five feet of wall.
Working around the plumbing
The trap eats the middle
The P-trap sits right where you want drawer space. Options:
- U-shaped drawers that wrap around the plumbing. The best use of the space, and worth specifying.
- Split configuration: a drawer bank on one side, a door on the plumbing side.
- Wall-mounted faucet with the supply lines in the wall, which frees the top drawer entirely. Only feasible if the wall is open during the work.
Moving the plumbing
Sometimes worth it, often not. In a house with a cast-iron stack, moving a drain can cascade into much more work than anticipated. Get a plumber’s opinion before committing to a layout that requires it.
Non-square walls and plaster
Plaster walls bow. A vanity pushed against a bowed wall will show a gap at one end or at the top of the backsplash. The fixes are a scribed filler at the wall, a backsplash caulked to absorb the variation, or a counter templated after the cabinet is set.
Never order a stone top from drawings in an old house. Set the cabinet, then template.
The same rule applies to any cabinet installation in an older home, and it is the main reason those installations take longer.
Floating vanities in an old bathroom
A wall-mounted vanity looks contemporary and does two practical things in an old house: it keeps the cabinet off a sloping, damp floor, and it makes the small room read larger because the floor is continuous underneath.
It needs solid blocking in the wall to carry the load. In a plaster-and-lath wall that generally means opening the wall — straightforward during a renovation, awkward otherwise.
Materials for a bathroom in a Wisconsin house
Bathrooms in older homes often have poor ventilation, which means long periods of high humidity after showers. Plywood boxes with a catalysed finish on all six sides. Moisture-resistant MDF for painted doors is fine; particleboard cabinet bottoms under a sink are not.
Fit an under-sink drip tray regardless of material. A slow supply line weep is the most common cause of vanity failure and often goes unnoticed for months.
And check the exhaust fan. A fan that vents into the attic — common in older retrofits — is putting your bathroom’s moisture into the roof structure. That is a bigger problem than the vanity.
Keeping the character
A furniture-style vanity with visible legs suits a pre-war bathroom better than a modern slab. So do simple shaker doors, an undermount sink in a modest stone, and unlacquered brass or nickel fittings that age visibly.
What tends to look wrong: a heavy modern double vanity crammed into a small period bathroom, and a vanity finished in a wood tone unrelated to anything else in the house. Our bathroom cabinets are usually specified to relate to the existing trim rather than to a bathroom catalogue.
Frequently asked questions
What height should a vanity be?
Thirty-two to 36 inches. Older homes often have 30-inch vanities, which feel low to most adults now. Comfort height is 36.
Can I fit a double vanity in a small bathroom?
You need about 60 inches minimum, and even then a single sink with more counter is often more useful.
Is a pedestal sink ever the right answer?
In a very small half bath, yes — it buys floor space and suits an old house. In a main bathroom, the lost storage usually hurts.
Do I need to replace the tile to replace the vanity?
Not necessarily, but a new vanity with a different footprint may expose unfinished floor. Check what is under the existing cabinet before ordering.
Start with a measure
Old bathrooms are best planned in person, with the plumbing positions in hand. Call (608) 665-1379 for a free consultation.
