Bath Vanities
Stock vanities come in 24, 30, 36, 48, and 60 inches. Bathrooms don't. That gap is why so many CNY bathrooms have a filler strip on one side, a vanity that crowds the door swing, or eight inches of dead wall doing nothing. I build vanities to the opening that exists — the right width, the right height for the people using it, and storage designed around your plumbing instead of surrendering the whole cabinet to it.
Humidity swings from dry to saturated twice a day, water finds every unsealed edge, and the cabinet has a drain and two supply lines running through the middle of it. Cabinetry that survives that has to be built for it from the start. That means solid wood and marine-grade or cabinet-grade plywood rather than particleboard — the material difference nobody sees and everybody eventually feels, because particleboard swells once and never recovers. It means a fully finished interior, not just a finished face, and every edge sealed including the ones facing the wall. It means the toe kick gets a solid-wood face rather than a veneered one, because that's the first surface a wet floor touches.
Then there's the plumbing. The standard answer to a P-trap is a pair of doors and a cavernous cabinet you have to kneel down and reach into. The better answer is U-shaped drawers that wrap around the trap — full-extension, soft-close, and they turn the most-used cabinet in the house into something you can actually see the contents of. It costs more in shop time and it's the single upgrade people mention most after the install.
Height is the last thing worth arguing about. Stock vanities are 30 to 32 inches to the counter, a number inherited from mid-century bathrooms and shorter people. Comfort height is 34 to 36, and if the primary users are tall, going to 36 is the cheapest quality-of-life improvement in the whole project. In a kids' bath the answer flips the other way. Building custom means the number is a decision rather than an inheritance.
A single-sink vanity in painted poplar and ply with a drawer bank is the entry point; a double-sink run in stain-grade hardwood with a linen tower beside it is a multiple of that. The drivers are width, how much of the cabinet is drawers rather than doors, whether the interior is painted or stain-grade, and whether there's a tower or medicine cabinetry to match. I don't supply the counter, sink, or faucet — those come from you or your plumber, and I build to the template they specify. The full pricing logic is in my cost guide, and every quote itemizes materials, labor, and finish the same way, with a written fixed price before any deposit.
I build and install the cabinetry: the vanity, matching linen towers, recessed medicine cabinets, and any trim that ties them into the room. I don't do plumbing, tile, or electrical — those are licensed trades and you want licensed people doing them. In practice that means the vanity gets set and scribed, and your plumber connects it. If you're mid-renovation with a contractor already scheduled, I'll coordinate the install around their sequence. If you're not, I'm happy to tell you what order the trades need to go in so nothing gets built twice.
Measured and designed in your home, built in my shop, installed in a day or two. The sequence from first conversation to final coat is on the process page, and realistic scheduling — I run a one-craftsman shop and quote calendars honestly — is covered in what a built-in timeline really looks like. From approved design, plan on 8–16 weeks.
Vanities and walk-in closets are often the same project — when the closet opens onto the bath, one design and one install covers both.
Common Questions
No. Counters are a stone or solid-surface trade with their own templating process, and sinks and faucets are better bought by you so you get exactly what you want. I build the cabinet to the specifications the counter fabricator needs, and I'll tell you what those are before you order anything.
Yes, and it's what I recommend in almost every vanity. U-shaped drawer boxes wrap the trap and give you real, visible storage instead of a deep cabinet you have to kneel into. It's more shop time and it's worth it.
It's built for it — solid wood and cabinet-grade ply rather than particleboard, fully finished interiors, and every edge sealed including the hidden ones. Particleboard vanities fail from the bottom up because the toe kick wicks water; that's designed out here.
Usually, but it depends on what's behind the drywall. A wall-hung cabinet needs solid blocking between the studs to carry the load, which is easy during a renovation and more involved after. I'll check the wall at the design visit and tell you honestly which it is.
Syracuse & Central New York
A photo of the bathroom and the wall-to-wall width is enough to start.