Spenser Riley

View Original

When a Dresser becomes a Bathroom



I have an affinity for mid century modern dressers. I went through a stage where I bought them whenever I saw them, no matter how many I had back at home. So, I ended up with a garage full of old mid-century dressers. I once paid someone 100 bucks to take their truck to a town thirty minutes away because the guy was selling a full set for dirt cheap. I had no place to put them, but I had to have them.

When we moved houses back in Tennessee, & I had the chance to remodel this gem, I KNEW exactly the vision I had for my bathrooms. I didn’t want just another typical counter & drawers from Lowes. I wanted something unique with modern lines that had the legs of a midcentury piece of furniture… so I knew JUST what to do!

CONVERT MY DRESSERS INTO BATHROOM COUNTERS!

I still remember the contractors perplexed face when I told him what I wanted to do (which was pretty typical for most of my design ideas. Lots of “well…. I guess we could do that…. if that’s what you really want.” ha-ha!

I will say that even though it looked really pretty, it was almost impossible to keep any of the old drawers. Because we had to run the plumbing through the dresser, most of the dresser space couldn’t be salvaged. I had to come up with some other unique storage ideas for toiletries. I had both bathrooms upstairs done with hardware & light fixtures all from Schoolhouse and we had floating bowl sinks placed on top. Super pretty, but also very messy - I was constantly wiping off water marks off the top.



This was our master bathroom. In hindsight, I would have not made the closet space so massive (because it cut into my bathroom space). However, this was one of my favorite dressers. We weren't able to salvage any of the drawer space, so I literally had to keep all our toiletries neatly organized elsewhere (which was really annoying). But…. it sure looked good.

This was the guest bathroom (darn that stupid washcloth I didn't remove before the photo). ;) We were able to salvage the top row of drawers in this dresser. This dresser had a veneer top, so this one was easier to clean than the master bathroom.

And just for extra, here was the basement bathroom. Honestly, it sucked this was in the basement, because we literally never went down there and it was the coolest space we redid and NO ONE EVER SAW IT!!!! But I still liked it so I added it in. We used a piece of live edge wood and had the plumbing routed through. It was one of my favorites.


So, there you have it. You have a vision for it, you can do it. I’m a big believer in up-cycling, so this one was a dream come true. If you want to see more of my midcentury remodel, you can click here