Here's the part about creating a custom bathroom vanity that's a bit of a bummer: Ultimately, someone must carve a gaping hole into the piece of countertop stone you painstakingly sourced to make room for the sink. Very necessary if you want to, you know, wash your face, but a little heartbreaking nonetheless. That is, unless you're Alex McCabe, cofounder of the Melbourne-based bedding and housewares brand Kip&Co, and her partner Bobby Babb, who found a genius way to use every inch of the honey onyx slab they chose for their own bathroom countertop.
"It seemed such a waste to dispose of the off-cuts from this lovely piece of stone, especially seeing as we were going to take a big oval out for our bathroom sink," Alex says. "The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to make use of the whole piece all for ourselves, and we thought a little side table would be a perfect use for the remainder." Here's how it came to be:
"We planned this before we removed the piece for the sink," says Alex. "We had to keep reminding the workshop to save it for us. They were a bit confused by it all, and we thought that it had been lost once or twice, but it eventually found its way to us. If you're planning to do this, we suggest being clear upfront that you want to keep all the leftover pieces. Don't be afraid to say what you want and follow up to make sure they know you are serious."
Rather than have a table base custom made or buy one brand-new, Alex and Bobby scoured antique stores and vintage shops for a more budget-friendly option. "We often travel to the Mornington Peninsula to visit my parents and there are a treasure trove of those types of stores down there to cater to all kinds of needs and budgets," says Alex. They hit the jackpot at Obtainium Antiques & Vintage Wares. "They have an extensive range, which skews to the offbeat and a little strange. This base was a bargain. It is actually an outdoor seat that we have refashioned. If we're ever short for outdoor seating, we can remove the top and use the base for its original purpose as a stool, so double bargain!"
"By the time we got the off-cut back, we were coming to the end of our renovation and budgets were tight, so we did everything ourselves! Because we took our time finding the base, it fit really well and we didn't need to do any resizing of the top," Alex explains. The stone came polished and sealed, so the only thing they needed to do was sand a few places where the edges were rough or a little sharp. To attach the top to the base, Alex and Bobby carved out small grooves on the underside of the stone so it would fit snugly on the frame of the base sans hardware. "It's worked so well!" says Alex. "We are currently building a place on the Mornington Peninsula near my parents. We are still working out final details on materials, but if we have an opportunity to do this again we definitely will."
