Building an antique inspired bathroom isn’t easy. After all, you certainly don’t want to expose real antiques to the harsh, humid, and ever changing environment of the bathroom, and replicas designed specifically for the bathroom aren’t always easy to come by. Traditional bathroom vanities easier to find, but truly ornate antique styles – with elaborate wood carvings and exotic wood veneers – are rarer. More difficult still is building a total bathroom design based on an eclectic selection of mixed and matched styles from all different regions and all different time periods. With a period style, the best way to get a cohesive decor is to opt for antique bathroom vanity sets, collections of furnishings and accents that help coordinate an old world style.
Antique Veneers
Making sure the frame of your bathroom mirror matches your bathroom vanity is important in any type of decor. But it’s a heck of a lot easier to do when the color of both is a generic “espresso.” With antique bathroom vanities, which are often made of much rarer and more exotic woods, getting a perfect color match is almost impossible unless you buy an antique bathroom vanity set. This Lorraine bombe chest style vanity is a perfect example. Made with cherry wood veneers and finished with an aged chestnut stain, the wood is luminous and unique…and the mirror matches perfectly because it’s part of the same collection.
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Antique Woodwork
Antique bathroom vanities are largely characterized by the degree of detail in the woodwork. Elaborate floral carvings and intricate, hand-wrought flourishes, and sometimes hand painted details are part and parcel of an antique design. That’s why if you buy a vanity by itself, without a vanity top, sink, faucet, mirror, or linen cabinet (which is how most vanities of all types are sold), it can be almost impossible to match these intricate details across separate pieces of furniture. This is really the most important reason for antique bathroom vanity sets, as they package together all the wood pieces your bathroom needs not only in exactly the same finish, but with all the same finishing work, too.
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Better For A Bigger Bathroom
The famous furniture designs that have survived until today as “antiques” were originally used in huge, sprawling spaces. Even now, antique bathroom design is often reserved for larger bathrooms. While there are compact antique vanities designed for a small bathroom, vanities 72″ or wider are typically antique in style. Antique bathroom vanity sets – especially ones with a three-piece modular design – are incredibly valuable for this type of bathroom. Not only do they include less expensive stone vanity tops (more on this in a moment), but because the vanity comes in three pieces, you can easily install them yourself. They also often come with a vanity top and sink pre-assembled, making it supremely easy to fill out a larger bathroom.
Complete Stone Counter Tops
Building a period style bathroom is equal parts luxury and authenticity, and striking a solid balance between the two. Not all details are historically accurate (nor should they be!), but they should stay true to the spirit of the times as well as the vibe you want for your design. One of the easiest details to get right is simple: install marble or granite counter tops for a double whammy of history and luxury. Antique bathroom vanity sets do this especially well, as the included vanity tops are chosen to match the design, and are much less expensive because vanity manufacturers buy and cut them in bulk.
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Seamless Sinks
One of the less obvious advantages of antique bathroom vanity sets (and of having your vanity manufacturer make your vanity top) is that the holes for your sink are always perfectly cut for that company’s sinks. That makes installing undermount sinks easy – so easy, in fact, that many sets come with the sink already attached to the counter so they can install as a single piece. This is great not just for a seamless, finished antique style, but having your sink mounted underneath your counter rather than sitting on top of it makes it much easier to clean – just wipe any water or debris right into the bowl. No-fuss spill cleanup also means your stone vanity tops, which can be a bit fussy to care for, are a lot less likely to discolor or stain.
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All Together Excellence
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Perhaps more than with any other type of decor, antique bathroom vanity sets take a lot of the headache out of upgrading your bathroom. The more complete the set the better: mirrors, sinks, vanity tops, faucets, and storage cabinets all coordinated and even partially assembled each mean a little less struggle to build a matching design. And when you’re buying high end antique replicas, purchasing as much as you can in a single package is maybe the most reliable way to lower the total cost of your project. How extensive an antique bathroom remodel are you looking to do? Do you just need a bathroom vanity, or are you looking for supplemental furnishings as well?
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