Custom Bathroom Vanities in Jacksonville, FL

Three shapes cover almost everything people ask for, and they behave differently in a humid room. Bathroom vanity cabinets sit on the floor with a toe kick, stand on legs like furniture, or hang off the wall.

A full height box gives the most drawers and hides the trap. Furniture style on 5 to 7 inch legs keeps the bottom panel off wet tile and suits an older Riverside bath.

This is the whole argument for a custom bathroom vanity. We measure the opening at the floor, at counter height and at the back wall, because in a house built before 1980 those numbers are rarely the same.

Those are rules of thumb rather than code. A 55 inch opening becomes a 55 inch vanity with a scribed filler at the tight end.

Plumbing decides the inside. Rough drains here land 18 to 20 inches above the finished floor with supply valves a few inches to either side. We notch the plywood back to the real pipe locations and cut a U in the back of the drawer boxes, so the trap passes through and you get a usable top drawer instead of a false front.

On slab homes, most of Mandarin, Southside and Arlington, the drain often comes up through the floor. That kills a full width bottom drawer, so we plan a tip out tray there and put the storage above it.

A Jacksonville bathroom swings from dry to saturated twice a day, so material choice is the difference between twenty years and five.

The failure we are called to fix most is the sink base floor. Water runs down the back of the trap, sits on an unsealed bottom, and the panel swells like a sponge. We seal that panel on every face and bead the edges.

Finish gets sprayed and catalyzed, never brushed, and every edge including the bottom of each door gets coated. At the Beaches and in Ponte Vedra we specify stainless hardware, since salt air pits plated hinges into orange streaks on a white door. If your boxes are sound and only the doors look tired, cabinet refacing may be the smarter spend.

A floating bathroom vanity looks simple and is the most structural thing in the room. The cabinet, the stone top, the sink and anything you lean on it all transfer into the wall.

We open the wall and let in solid blocking, usually a 2x8 or 2x10 flat across the studs, then bolt a cleat through into it. Drywall anchors are not part of this conversation, since a 48 inch floating unit with a quartz top carries 250 pounds empty.

Bottom of the cabinet 8 to 12 inches off the tile is the usual window: higher cleans easier, lower buys drawer depth. On a block exterior wall there is no stud bay, so we fur out a framed wall deep enough for the cleat and the plumbing, or through bolt a steel bracket into the block. Decide before tile goes on.

A double sink vanity is a width question first. Two bowls need 60 inches to feel right and 72 to actually work, with 30 to 36 inches from bowl center to bowl center.

At 60 inches you get two bowls and one narrow drawer bank between them. At 72 you get a 15 to 18 inch stack in the middle plus counter outside each sink. Below 60 we talk people out of two sinks, because a 54 inch double leaves each person about 9 inches of counter and the toothbrush cup ends up on the toilet tank.

A powder room vanity has one job: put a sink in a closet sized space without the door hitting it. Half baths in Jacksonville townhomes and older bungalows are often 3 feet by 6 feet.

Shallow is the move. We build 15 to 18 inch deep boxes instead of 21, and a 24 to 30 inch piece on legs reads intentional rather than cramped. Guests use this room, so it is worth a detail, built in the same shop as our furniture grade freestanding cabinetry.

The top and the bowl change how the cabinet is built, so we pick them before cutting plywood. Undermount bowls need quartz, granite or solid surface to carry them, plus corner blocking and a support rail so the bowl never hangs on adhesive alone. Vessel bowls want a lower cabinet, 30 to 32 inches, or the rim ends up at your chest.

Quartz is the Jacksonville default because it needs no sealing and ignores humidity. Give the fabricator a level cabinet either way.

First we come look: opening measured in three places, plumbing photographed, wall identified as framed or block. You get a drawing and a fixed price.

Build and finish take 3 to 6 weeks, driven by the finish schedule. Install is one day for a single and two for a double: we shim the unit dead level, scribe the ends and secure it. If the top is stone, the fabricator templates that day and returns in 7 to 10 days, the plumber connects last, then we adjust doors and caulk.

Those cover the cabinet, the finish and the install. Stone tops add $60 to $130 per square foot installed, and fixtures are separate. Door construction moves the price first, since inset costs 20 to 30 percent more than overlay in fitting labor. Structure is next, because a floating unit adds wall work. These are typical Northeast Florida ranges, not a quote.