Vanity Fair: Six superb bathroom vanity choices

Splashing out on the best bathroom pieces with super storage and cavernous counter space

Moon 22 by GB Group designed by Danilo Fedeli. Compositions from €3200, versatile.ie

Today's bathroom vanities are alive with texture, colour and bold new character. Little wonder that, consulting on bathroom projects, it’s the single item after tiles that hold us up in an aesthetic huddle for weeks. Here are just six of the most gorgeous and versatile examples offering storage and counter and, of course, staging a wash-basin (or two) on offer this season, together with tips for finding your style-defining, dream vanity.

We have separation

The vanity area is showing signs of change and, in particular, it’s separating out into constituent parts that retain a strong relationship to each other. The freestyle approach is to run an independent robust shelf or long, low drawer unit below the principal floating vanity element, which may or may not include a drawer. This is sleek and unashamedly architectural, and you can place various forms including mirrors and other cabinets across the same wall with open and blind storage. Using distinct pieces below or set slightly off-set from each other is especially striking in mixed materials.

The Moon range from GB Group has light veneers intended to evoke an ethereal glow — perfect for a smaller bathroom robbed of a window that would drown in dramatic darker colour. This look could be assembled from other more affordable constituent parts, but exquisite wall hanging and choosing matching lines for each piece is crucial to their aesthetic success.

With all floating furniture, there’s an advantage over legged pieces, perfectly meeting the height requirements of its primary user when standing or preening from a wheelchair.

Moon 22, by GB Group, designed by Danilo Fedeli. Compositions from €3,200, versatile.ie

Sensory chic

Granlusso Opus Oak. From €685 for 600mm, Deluxe Bathrooms.

It’s reach out and touch this season with vanities and matching storage cabinetry with silky, individualised fronts in whites, neutrals, timbers and robust colour. Fluted or reeded surfacing is having a moment, and the same movement that created the anti-kitchen is placing furniture with mid-century sideboard styling in our bathrooms in exotic timber laminates. The Granlusso Opus range includes Oak Fluted vanities in a choice of stone basins, and marble-effect worktops, housed in squared-up or curvaceous oak-inspired cabinets. Adding relaxed, organic warmth to those metres of neutral tiling, they look particularly beautiful with brushed gold taps.

Alternative quality designs in a flatter, slatted pale timber, Carsone in coated plywood from €1,020 for a 1200mm suspended vanity with resin sink, sklum.com. If you fancy a colour, look for quilted fronts including the Crosswater Vergo in a velvety crosshatch design, 500mm with black glass basin, €1,328 to order, deluxebathrooms.ie. Don’t forget texture when styling your bathroom, a perfect moment for a vanity to step in and create a welcome sensation.

Granlusso Opus Oak, from €685 for 600mm, deluxebathrooms.ie

Matching style?

Sonas Stockholm wall-hung vanity, 600mm, Matt Artic Grey, €556, various suppliers.

Sonas, a proud Irish design and business success story, loves colour and cohesive schemes, so do we, but they also argue for consideration for matchy-matchy. Their design team explain: “What we mean is the use of colour through numerous points in your design. Think coloured toilets matched with coloured basins, and coloured units matched with coloured shower profiles. This careful colour

coordination not only adds character to your bathroom but enhances the overall aesthetic, creating a harmonious flow and visually appealing bathroom space.”

Stylish and functional, these matching Stockholm (floor-standing) vanities were used by Lorraine Keane in her own family bathroom styled by Sonas, and they can be matched to Stockholm wall columns in a wide range of Scandinavian-infused colour.

Tip: Keep in mind that the top drawer of your vanity is likely to be invaded by about 30% by the plumbing of the basin — do you have enough room? So 600mm-1200mm is standard sizing for a single vanity but check out that counter/basin surround for adequate room to balance your toiletries if you’re not adding shelving.

Sonas Stockholm wall-hung vanity, 600mm, matt Arctic grey, €556, various suppliers

Custom tricks

Angsjon/Oxmyren, 1200mm wide, €595, Ikea.

You have to give it to IKEA when it comes to building out affordable design, something often far more costly with top bathroom branding. Where you’re faced with a white or neutral bathroom or en suite that’s all but floating away, anchor it back on a gorgeous, modern vanity with a Tolken marble-effect counter.

For this custom look, which you can vary with your own choice of cabinet, counter and tap, there’s a transparent dark grey washbasin and a choice of finish to a cabinet mounted to the wall.

Spoiler alert — this is IKEA, and you will have to put it together and do a little cutting with a jigsaw to mount your tap and sink. Available in oak, white and treacle dark brown oak, ideal for that trending Dark Academia of AW24. Marry to storage pieces in the Angsjon series (Brogrund mixer tap included). Throw in a pack of Tavelan timber trays to micro-manage your vanity, €12 for two or various box bundles from €3, ikea.com/ie.

In vanities, you do get what you pay for. The difference between budget furniture and premium pieces is generally their materials, attention to detail, build quality and durability.

Angsjon/Oxmyren by IKEA, 1200mm wide, €595

Freestanding charisma

Burlington 1340 1200mm vanity with upstand, €2,900.

If you’re looking for a touch of late 19th-century tradition, the elegant Burlington 1340 curved vanity unit has freestanding charisma under protective coatings that can stand up to the worst the dry side of most bathrooms have to sling at it. Think carefully about clearance, as this piece has wide opening doors for easy access and maximises storage.

The beauty combines a worktop on the unit with an integrated basin and four soft-close doors. I’m impressed by the attention to detail, with five primer coats with UV stabilisation to minimise colour fading from exposure to sunlight, six different hand-painted colours and two worktop choices — a white marble or white veined Carrara.

Buy in matt white if you want to paint to your own scheme. To run up and down in scale from the corner models up, examine the whole Burlington line and Hudson Reed’s Old London range, €1950 for a 1200mm vanity with more transitional, Deco lines, bathshack.com. Keep in mind, like most vanities, these are sealed MDF products. If it chips, repair breaks in the surface immediately.

Burlington 1340, 1200mm vanity with upstand, €2,900, various suppliers

Materials matter

Mada by Crosswater, 500mm wall-hung with shelving. Priced from €960.

Inspired by iconic Japanese architecture, the Mada line from Crosswater is reductive, calming and chic, and we love it in this compact 700mm single with a mineral marble basin. Where you don’t want the poke of a handle (say, passing to the shower), the integrated handle cut-out and wood detail are intended to say Japandi in a soft, spa whisper.

A generous single, soft-close, full-extension drawer will suit one to two people. Available as a stand-alone drawer unit or with an optional colour-matched shelf and frame in deep indigo blue, soft clay, sage green and matt white in 500mm/600mm/700mm. Mada countertops are easy to clean, highly heat-resistant and impenetrable to dust, dirt and bacteria. The MDF used in the best cabinet making is termed hydrofuged, as it’s super resistant to water damage.

Expect to be offered solid wood, plywood, MDF and particle board when looking for your vanity. See how the staged model is standing up at the edges and corners when you visit any showroom — chipping and separating surfaces tell their own story.

Mada by Crosswater, 500mm wall-hung with shelving. Priced from €960, various suppliers