Bathroom Vanity

A bathroom vanity puts the basin, the storage and the mirror into one unit, which is why it has largely replaced the pedestal basin in new Indian bathrooms. The range here is built on four body materials - waterproof PVC, aluminium with PVC, stainless steel and HDHMR - with basin tops in sintered marble or moulded counter. Widths run from a compact 450 mm and 500 mm through the common 600 mm and 800 mm up to a 1000 mm and a double-width 1200 mm. Almost every unit ships with a mirror: plain, LED backlit, three-colour LED, anti-fog, sensor-operated or a full mirror cabinet with storage behind. Colours include white, black, grey, ivory, apricot and green. Prices run from around ₹7,700 for a 500 mm PVC unit to about ₹36,000 for a 1200 mm double vanity with a sintered marble basin and LED mirror.

How to choose a bathroom vanity

  • Width, then depth. Measure the clear wall and check the door swing. A 500 mm unit is the realistic maximum in many Indian bathrooms; 600 mm is the standard; 800 mm and above need a dedicated wall. Deep cabinets of around 490 to 500 mm hold more but eat floor space.
  • Tap hole or no tap hole. Some tops are supplied drilled for a deck-mounted mixer and some are not, because they are meant for a wall-mounted tap. Decide this before ordering - it cannot be changed sensibly afterwards.
  • Body material against your bathroom. PVC and aluminium bodies do not swell or rust, which is the failure mode of ordinary plywood vanities in a wet Indian bathroom. HDHMR is a denser engineered board treated for water. Stainless steel is the most robust of the lot.
  • Sintered marble or moulded top. Sintered marble is dense, resists staining and gives a stone look without natural stone's porosity. A moulded counter costs less and is lighter to mount.
  • Mirror function. An LED mirror needs a power point behind it, so plan the electrical point at the same time. Anti-fog is genuinely useful in a closed bathroom with a geyser; a mirror cabinet buys storage a plain mirror does not.

Wall mounting and humidity

Most of these vanities are wall hung, which keeps the floor clear for cleaning and avoids the damp that collects under a floor-standing cabinet. That puts the whole load on the wall, so a solid masonry wall or properly backed partition is essential. Leave the plumbing accessible: the waste and the angle valve sit inside the cabinet, so a unit with a cut-out or removable back panel is easier to live with. In coastal and monsoon-humid homes, the hinges and rails matter as much as the carcass - keep the cabinet ventilated and wipe spills off the counter rather than letting water sit at the joint between basin and top.

Common questions

What size vanity fits a small bathroom? A 450 mm or 500 mm unit. Below that you are better off with a pedestal basin, because the cabinet stops being usable storage.

Do I need a separate basin and tap? The basin comes with the vanity. The tap does not, so order a mixer to suit - deck-mounted if the top is drilled, wall-mounted if it is not.

Will a PVC vanity last in a wet bathroom? PVC does not absorb water or swell, which is exactly why it is used here in place of plywood. The parts to watch are the hinges and the wall fixings, not the panels.