The bathroom sink started with going from a pedestal sink to a vanity. Unfortunately, I ran into issues with the drain being rusted out. In the end, I ended up replacing most of my bathroom plumbing with PVC. The new sink is great and the process of doing the plumbing was not bad but rather time-consuming. 

The Longest Project Yet

I provide this picture as a sort of testament to the difficulty which was replacing the plumbing. As one can see I had to cut the drywall out so I had room to install the new PVC.

The bathroom sink took several months as I would start and then give up on it. Eventually, I decided to buy a bunch of PVC and go for it. Once I gutted the old plumbing and started new it really wasn’t bad. I had difficulty conceptualizing how it would all fit together so the wife and I had to make several trips to get the last few pieces of PVC.

One of the hardest parts of the plumbing was trying to do the sink in 1 ¼ because plumbing supplies are scarce for that size. I ended up buying a total of four p traps as one went to the bathtub and the other three were used for parts or because I cut one too much.

Things went more smoothly once I decided to convert the plumbing from the sink and do everything in 1 ½ but it was still tricky. The hard part of installing my vanity sink was the tub that sits next to it. I had to make slight modifications to the vanity as it is sitting offset due to the enormous size of the bathtub. As an aside the bathtub is so large because it was put in by bathroom outfitters so there is a tub underneath the current one. 

The vanity was not the only thing offset

The plumbing was offset from the wall to the sink by a 1/8th of an inch which I could have jammed the plumbing together since the PVC was flexible enough but that was not an elegant solution. Instead, I did a sweeping 90 which allowed for the proper fitment. Although this process sounds easy. I have an entire pile of leftover plumbing from trying to get the angles to work correctly.

I cleaned up the cut and put a sealant on it after the photo but the added space was needed to allow the cold water valve to turn.

My final verdict on the bathroom sink project

I could see myself rating the installation of a vanity a 9/10. I personally like the look and functionality of a vanity far more than that of a pedal sink and it came together very lovely. It is one of my proudest projects I have done and yet my personal installation was more of a 4/10 as I had to deal with an offset vanity and rusted plumbing. As long as issues like mine are not going to occur I think even a cheap vanity will make a bathroom look much improved and could be a great weekend project.

Here is the cheap vanity we bought.

The finished bathroom sink and all the unused plumbing underneath are on the road to making the sink work.