My one and only bathroom is small enough that, anywhere but an apartment, it would barely qualify as a guest bathroom. There’s just enough room for a vanity, a toilet, a small shower/tub combo, and, with a little finesse, a tiny trashcan. My bathroom vanity is 24″, which is the smallest standard size, but still big enough that it takes up most of my tiny bathroom. And because it’s a full cabinet without any drawers or shelves, well, let me tell you, it definitely isn’t the best option out there. So lately I’ve been looking for bathroom vanities that do more with less space, so I can make a little more wiggle room in my very small bathroom, and maybe be able to find my hair spray when I need it.
Petite Open Shelf Vanities
The vast majority of bathroom vanities are designed to have a width that’s some multiple of six or twelve inches. But if you have a truly small bathroom, it’s worth ditching the cookie cutter and putting out the extra effort to get a smaller vanity. Not only will it make your bathroom look and feel bigger, it’ll also give you greater control over supplementary storage. One of the most common layouts you’ll see is reminiscent of a style popular with much larger vanities: the open shelf. Instead of one large cabinet, you have a small cabinet under the sink and an open shelf beneath that. This design provides a little closed storage at waist height for personal items and an open space at the bottom for general bathroom items, like TP and spare towels.
Pillar Style
If you’re looking to save floor space by hook or by crook, but you aren’t willing or able to add additional storage outside your vanity, your best option is a pillar style vanity. These are straight, narrow rectangular cabinets, sometimes as small as a foot wide. They typically have one long door that opens up on a cabinet divided by a shelf in the middle. More often than not, these have vessel sinks simply because there vanity isn’t wide enough to accommodate a drop-in. That said, these are actually pretty nice, all things considered. The shelf in the middle helps keep the cabinet organized, and the top-mounted sink means there’s actually more space inside the cabinet, too.
Efficiency
How small you can go with your bathroom vanity is going to depend a lot on your daily routine. If you’re someone who spends hours in front of the mirror every day, you can probably skip over this option. But if you’re more of a minimalist groomer, an efficiency style bathroom vanity can save you a lot of space. Modeled after the kind of vanities you’d find on a small boat or RV, these have a very small, narrow rectangular sink, a one-handle faucet offset to one side, and a micro sized cabinet that’s just big enough for the most basic toiletries. Similar to the grey water taps being built into high efficiency toilets, these are really only good for washing your hands and face, brushing your teeth, and maybe a morning shave
Full Extension Drawers
Drawers in any form are great if you can get them. But even in 24″ vanities, let alone ones that are smaller, drawers aren’t always easy to come by. The reason is simple: the underside of the sink and the plumbing are occupying primo real estate. Nine times out of ten, it’s a cabinet or bust. That is, unless you opt for a vanity that’s all drawers. Instead of leaving a whole cabinet to accommodate your sink’s plumbing, these ones have full-extension drawers with U-shaped cutouts that let you store stuff in the space around the plumbing, rather than leaving it useless. The “full extension” part makes it even better. It means you can pull the drawer ALL the way out without worrying about it falling out, making it easy to access items you’ve stuffed way in the back of the drawer.
Wall Mounted Storage Cabinets
The biggest drawback to opting for one of these teeny tiny bathroom vanities is that you wind up with almost zero counter space. You might have room for a toothbrush holder and maybe a bar of soap, but anything else? Forget it. If you already have a 24″ vanity, you probably already know the feeling, but every inch you lose matters. So if you’re scaling back to a smaller vanity, make sure to choose one that has really good storage options. I don’t just mean in the vanity itself. Look for features like integrated towel bars and add-on storage cabinets that have a slim profile. Combined with a medicine cabinet or other storage mirror, you’ll probably end up with more (and certainly better) storage than you would have in a full 24″ vanity.
But what do you think? Is gaining a little extra floor space worth having to get a little creative with your storage? Let me know in the comments below!
