Advice on building a custom bathroom vanity

[Cdshakes]

Live in a small cape--single bathroom.  Recently redid the floor and finally painted.
Ready to do the vanity and most likely the med cabinet too.  Right now i have a 30" wide by 18" deep  cabinet, pretty basic.  My girlfriend says there's too much wasted space with the drawers.  The opening in the faceframe from under the false front to the lower face frame is 17".  
The drawer fronts are 8.75 tall, but boxes are only 5" tall.  There's a full 1" in between them, and first one is .75" below the false front.

The face frame pieces are 2" and 1.75" wide.

Take a look at the pic-- I'd like to build basically the same kind of vanity-with the sink where it is, but add an extension to the left side and add some drawers.  

Do you think i could tighten up the space between the drawers?  Perhaps deeper boxes, or smaller fronts-- maybe get 2 regular drawers and a shallow drawer on top?

What is the minimum spacing between drawers/doors i should consider?

[JGrout]

If you replace the sink top you could do one like this  Yes those are functioning drawers on the top the sink cover is just in the center 

If you go frameless make sure you allow clearance for the drawers to open against the left wall as I suspect that is the doorway and trim will interfere if you get them too close 

You can go with inset margins this way (overlay the cabinet perimeter) but no need for intermediate rails between the drawers  The ones above are 1/2" but they wanted the dividers with a bit of care you can squeeze that down to 3/32" easy The depth of the drawers can be modified to suit your needs as well.  LOML wanted 3" deep drawers at the top of her vanity which was just a matter of layout 

Joe

[jteneyck]

Following up on what Joe said, if you go frameless you will maximize the storage space.  Here's a large vanity I built:



Note how little space you lose - the drawer box is nearly as large as the drawer front.  All that separates them is a 3/4" stretcher.  



Traditional vanities were 32" high to the top of the counter top.  Modern ones are higher.  I built my own almost 36" high to the top of the counter top.  My 5'3" wife complained - for about 2 days.  Now she's fine with it.  Maybe not good for kids, however, unless you give them a step stool.

John

[Cdshakes]

wow, both of those are very nice.  Interesting thought on the height-- i'm 6'3".  I think perhaps a little taller would be a good thing!

[Cooler]

wow, both of those are very nice.  Interesting thought on the height-- i'm 6'3".  I think perhaps a little taller would be a good thing!

I made my cabinet tall.  But I'm not tall.  So when I try to bend over the sink to wash my face I just make it to the basin.  So you have to make the height to suit the shortest person to use the sink on a regular basis.  

There are standard dimensions for a vanity:  https://www.tradewindsimports.com/blog/s...om-vanity/

I built mine with the legs separate.  I leveled the legs and then put on the cabinet.  Much easier.

<img src="http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h264/Packard_photos/IMG_0148_zpsfb7b7dd1.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_0148_zpsfb7b7dd1.jpg"/>

I made the drawers from melamine covered particle board.  A decision I regret.

<img src="http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h264/Packard_photos/IMG_0144_zps587d2ad4.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_0144_zps587d2ad4.jpg"/>

I recently remade the bottom drawer using poplar and dovetails.  But here is the image of the older drawer:

<img src="http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h264/Packard_photos/IMG_0142_zpsd0aa4031.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_0142_zpsd0aa4031.jpg"/>

Use full extension slides.  You won't regret spending extra for those.

I sized the upper drawer to accept rolls of toilet paper on the sides.  I needed the taller legs to clear the hot water baseboard heater.

[Mr_Mike]

I'm a big fan of frameless. It maximizes space. In the last two baths I have remodeled, I also reversed the position of the traditional false front at the sink and the drawer below. If you move the door to just under the sink, you can put a functional drawer below. One must, however, be very wary of the drain trap position so the floor of the door space is in the correct location. Doing this maximizes the utility of the area around the plumbing.

I also chose to make the cabinet kitchen counter height. A little taller than normal.

Lastly, you can get a 4 foot premade counter top from your local big box store and cut the edges off to fit your space and keep the sink centered. (Measure to make sure). All it takes is a circular saw with a diamond blade and a diamond polishing pad. This pic is my hall bath.

[Cdshakes]

so if you don't have a face frame, what's between each drawer/door?

[Mr_Mike]

Up/down? Nothing.

Left/right, usually a 3/4" plywood panel, excepting double doors, of course. You use half-overlay hinges (which is why they are called half-overlay hinges
), if you have two doors hinged on one panel.

Plenty of good books on frameless construction.

Please heed Joe's warning on clearing the bathroom door casing. I usually make the carcass shy of the wall and use a filler strip I scribe to the wall. Counter top spans that small open space.

[JGrout]

What Mike said is correct  the carcass is a box with dividers in it they can be solid front to back on the interior or they can just be a few inches wide to create support for drawer runners and hinges 
 I have built them both ways in your case  you should use full dividers though because your door is in the middle the top can be solid as well  




The above is a good example of a frameless cabinets  



And with the drawers installed 

pretty simple to add dividers to define spaces ( doors vs drawers )

[MsNomer]

Frameless. Consider all drawers, no doors. Because the only extra space required is the thickness of a drawer bottom, consider more shallower drawers.

If there will be nothing heavy in these drawers, consider just gluing the bottom onto the bottom of the sides. If there will be something heavy, consider using 1/2" ply in a groove. Result with either is that the bottom of the drawer is smooth so nothing from the lower drawer can get stuck under the upper drawer.