Bathroom vanity installation in Southeast Michigan

Vanity installation changes a bathroom more than anything else you can do in a day. The cabinet is the largest object in the room, and swapping it for one the same size takes a single visit. Wright’s bathroom repair crew pulls the old unit, reconnects the plumbing, seals the top and takes the cabinet away with us rather than leaving it in your garage.

Same footprint, or a different one

Replacing a vanity with one of the same width and depth is a repair. The supply lines and the drain stay where they are, the flooring underneath stays where it is, and nothing needs a permit. That is what this page describes and it is what most households want.

Changing the size is a different job. A wider cabinet often covers flooring that was never laid under the old one, and it can foul the door swing or the toilet clearance. A narrower one exposes unfinished floor and unpainted wall. Either can be done, and both belong in a bathroom remodel rather than a repair visit.

Height, and the counter everybody stoops to

Standard vanities have sat around thirty inches tall for generations, which suits a child and almost nobody else. Comfort height units sit closer to thirty six, the same as a kitchen counter, and most adults find them better the first morning they use one.

The exception is a bathroom children use daily, where a lower counter means they can reach the tap without a stool. And where somebody uses a wheelchair or needs to sit at the sink, the requirement inverts entirely: the counter needs clear knee space underneath, which is a specific cabinet type rather than a height adjustment. That sits with accessible bathroom work.

What is behind the old cabinet

Pulling a vanity reveals the wall and floor nobody has seen since the house was built. Two things turn up regularly. The first is unpainted drywall and unfinished flooring, because the original installer worked around the cabinet. The second is water damage, since a vanity hides a slow leak better than any other object in a bathroom.

We patch and paint the wall so the new unit sits against a finished surface, and we deal with soft flooring before anything goes back. Setting a new cabinet on a wet subfloor is a repair that fails, and finding the leaking trap or supply line that caused it is part of the same visit.

Walls that are not straight, floors that are not level

Almost no wall in an older Southeast Michigan house is flat and almost no bathroom floor is level. A cabinet set against a bowed wall will have a gap at one end of the backsplash, and one set on a sloping floor will have a top that reads visibly out of true against the tile behind it.

We shim the base until the top is level, scribe the back where the wall demands it, and caulk the joint so the gap disappears. This is the part of the job that separates a cabinet that looks fitted from one that looks placed, and it is most of the skill in the work.

Tops, and what each one does in a wet room

Cultured marble integral tops are one piece with the bowl, so there is no seam at the basin to fail and nothing to clean around. Quartz is harder, takes an undermount bowl and looks considerably better in a room you care about. Granite behaves similarly and wants sealing occasionally.

Vessel bowls sitting on top of a flat counter are the one to think twice about, because they raise the working height several inches above whatever the cabinet gives you. On a comfort height base, a vessel can put the rim uncomfortably high for a shorter adult.

What the installation covers

  • Old vanity and top disconnected, removed and hauled away
  • Wall patched and painted, and soft flooring or subfloor addressed before setting
  • New cabinet shimmed level, scribed to the wall and anchored into framing
  • Top set and sealed, faucet and drain assembly connected and leak checked
  • New supply lines and quarter turn stop valves where the old ones are doubtful

Pedestal sinks, and why people regret them

A pedestal looks right in a small powder room and it gives you no storage whatsoever. Households that swap a vanity for a pedestal in the only full bathroom tend to regret it within a year, because everything that used to live in the cabinet now lives on the back of the toilet.

Going the other way is the more common request, and it is the more awkward installation, because the drain and supplies were set for a pedestal and often sit at the wrong height for a cabinet. We can usually work around it without opening the wall, and we look before we promise it.

Storage that suits the people using the room

Drawers beat doors for almost everything except the trap under the basin, because a drawer brings its contents to you rather than making you kneel and reach. A cabinet with two working drawers beside a false front under the bowl is the practical layout in a family bathroom.

Soft close hardware is standard on decent units now and worth checking for. It is not a luxury feature, it is the thing that stops a bathroom door slam waking the house at six in the morning.

Ready to assemble, or built and finished

Flat pack vanities arrive in a box and cost what they cost for a reason. The carcass is usually particle board with a printed finish, and particle board in a bathroom is on a timer from the day it is installed. Any leak, any dripped water down the back of a drawer, and it swells.

Plywood boxes with a solid wood face frame cost more and outlive three of the other kind. In a guest bathroom that gets used twice a year the cheap unit is a defensible decision. In the bathroom your household uses every morning it is a decision you make again in six years.

Getting the old one out of a finished house

An old vanity with a cultured marble top is heavier than it looks and it usually comes out through a hallway, down a staircase and past a painted wall. Tops are often glued to the cabinet rather than fastened, so separating them without cracking the top and taking a chunk out of the drywall takes a bit of care.

We protect the route, take the unit out in pieces where that is the sensible answer, and carry the old cabinet away with us. Nobody wants a wet particle board box sitting in the garage until the next bulk collection day.

Where a vanity swap sits on a bigger list

Where we work across Southeast Michigan

We cover Washtenaw, Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties from our Ypsilanti shop, and Ann Arbor, Plymouth and Canton are on the schedule most weeks.

Get the new vanity set

Measure the width of the old cabinet and tell us whether the floor under it feels solid. View our Portfolio to see the bathrooms our crews build, or contact us now for a free quote.