How We Turned an Antique Dresser Into a DIY Bathroom Vanity

When I started designing our hallway bathroom makeover (in my head during toddler bath time, mostly) I always knew I wanted to turn an antique dresser into a bathroom vanity. It’s unique, the wood tones are so cozy, and on the whole, it’s a lot more affordable than most vanities that aren’t ugly stock cabinets.

I got deep into Facebook Marketplace for a solid six months – bookmarking any antique dressers I could find, relentlessly asking sellers for measurements of their pieces, and inching out the radius of how far I’d be willing to drive to get the perfect piece. And then I finally found it!

The piece was originally a tallboy, two-level kind of a deal but it was already a great wood tone, had a unique design with carvings in the front drawers, and had a lot of potential.

So let’s dive into how I turned this antique dresser into a bathroom vanity.

Taking a crowbar to a perfectly good piece of furniture

I did feel pretty bad just absolutely hammering into a fully functional dresser that someone clearly put together with a lot of care many, many years ago, but I also knew that I was maybe in a way giving it a second life? It’s definitely getting a chance to shine in this new room.

Anyway, I disassembled the top section from the bottom half and set that aside, then removed the top piece of the remaining “dresser” part to leave the base exposed. I was actually really surprised at how easy this was to do – I only needed a hammer and a pry bar.

Adjusting the drawers

To turn it from an antique dresser into a bathroom vanity, I needed to adjust the bottom drawers to leave some space for the plumbing connections in the back. I bought a countertop with a built-in sink from Lowe’s, so I set that on top of the dresser and roughly tried to measure how much space I’d need to cut out of the drawers.

Spoiler: this was kind of a mess of a process and I just kind of guessed at first until I figured out what I needed to do.

I used a multitool to cut a rectangular section from the back of the dresser drawers, and cut down scrap plywood to frame out that new cutout and ultimately leave the drawer in a U shape. (Adding the plywood was necessary to make sure the drawer was still structurally sound and, honestly, it felt more solid after I’d hacked at it than it did in its initial rickety state).

Sealing the piece, just in case

Being that this dresser was going to be in a bathroom, I added a few coats of polycrylic to the drawer faces and the sides. I’m not 100% sure if this is necessary, but figured it couldn’t hurt and the satin finish gave the whole piece a bit of shine and deepened the wood tone.

Attaching the plumbing

I attached the faucet to the countertop before installing, which was a real hero move by me because it’s so much easier to do upright in an open space than crammed up under the sink upside down like a little plumbing goblin.

Once everything was in place, I added a bead of clear silicone around the top of the dresser and put the countertop in place then left it to set. The drain connection was fairly straightforward to install – at first there was a leak under the sink hole but I watched a YouTube video and it thankfully turned out to be a quick 5-minute fix.

This antique dresser turned bathroom vanity is one of my favorite projects in our whole bathroom makeover so far. If you don’t already, make sure to follow us on TikTok and Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter!