Evolution of the Vanity
Over the last few years, sideboards and cabinets have snuck off the showroom floor and out of the warehouse. Homeowners, builders, contractors and interior designers, unable to find bathroom vanities, purchased these larger furnishings for their sturdy design and high quality wood. Then, instead of installing them in dining rooms, they cut holes in them for double sinks in master suite bathrooms or removed the back panel and refit them into powder rooms.
Customers have confessed, guiltily, that they didn’t want me to know that they’d hacked apart the handmade furniture, so I decided to spare them that guilt by having bathroom vanities custom designed and handcrafted by my partners in Indonesia.
I continue to get countless requests for sink vanity units—especially those that perch nicely atop a sturdy, solid wood cabinet—and I’ve found that the Balinese style offers homeowners the perfect solution. My Caribbean customers seem to have a strong connection for the simple—yet undeniably unique—Asian pieces that are not standard off-the-shelf items, or mass produced in a Home Depot or Ikea-like style. In a similar tropical climate zone, the Indonesian atmosphere and style has become a staple here in our designs, from the courtyard to the living room to the bathroom. The designs allow my crafty customers to keep it simple yet elegantly refined.
On my last buying trip to Bali, I met with one of my furniture suppliers, and over a morning Java coffee, (strong enough to blow your socks off, and that's before they put a bucket of sugar in it), we came up with a few alterations to sideboards and console units, that could be used for multiple purposes, including as a vanity.
After that, still wired on coffee, I made a quick side trip to a stone supplier who makes custom sinks—with the shape and colour to the specifications of the buyer—and the new vanities are born. So now my clients don't have to feel guilty.
