I was brushing my teeth at seven in the morning on a Tuesday. My girlfriend, Emma, was rinsing off her facewash in front of me squeezing into our twelve inches of countertop space in my bathroom mirror. We were working our way around each other – she ducking behind me so she could see into the medicine cabinet while I stood at the sink scrubbing my teeth – when I realised we couldn’t keep living like this.
Emma and I had been talking about her moving in for years. We liked where I was living and figured moving in together was the next logical step. But the more我和女友 Emma讨论她搬进来, the bathroom became the biggest hurdle to cohabitation.
We could merge our Netflix subscriptions, but who was going to brush their teeth? My condo bathroom came equipped with what I assume every developer throws into their units: one of those cheap framed vanities with an undermount sink and maybe twelve inches of usable countertop space.
It worked fine when I was living alone, but sharing a bathroom with another human with an entirely separate face cream regimen was going to require some serious bathroom Tetris.
Emma was accommodating at first, waking up earlier each day so we could avoid bumping elbows in the shower, but one too many mornings of rinsing off her face in my kitchen sink convinced her we needed to expand. That morning, she knocked my electric toothbrush into the toilet while trying to squeeze past me for her night cream. It wasn’t her fault, of course, there was just no room for two people’s toiletries if we were going to continue both using the same three feet of countertop space each day.
I began looking into renovation permits online and felt a wave of panic. I’d never renovated anything in my condo before. I started poking around looking at double vanities online, which led me down an exhaustive Wikipedia wormhole of bath remodel forums and YouTube videos of folks demoing their own kitchens and bathrooms.
There’s an actual science to bathroom vanity spacing I had never previously considered. Most places said a minimum of thirty inches of space between sink centres was ideal, but then other commenters would chime in that you really needed thirty-six inches minimum. My bathroom was only eight feet across, so suddenly I found myself with a tape measure in bed at night trying to calculate if we could even fit a double vanity without remodeling the toilet too.
What no one tells you about condo renovation is that everything needs HOA approval. I mean everything. If you want to move a pipe, you fill out form 4B and wait six weeks for a letter back from building management.
If you need to change out an electrical outlet, that’s form 7A with an electrician inspection report. I spent more time on the phone and in email conversations with building management then I ever did planning the renovation itself. I found this gorgeous sixty-six inch vanity on Facebook Marketplace.
Solid wood construction with a nice finish, being sold by some couple who had upgraded and were moving to London for a new job. Sold to us for $400 instead of the original $1,200 asking price. The issue was this beauty had zero storage, something we didn’t realise until we actually lived with it for a few weeks.
We ended up installing pull-out drawers underneath each sink with additional storage to make up for the lack of cabinet space underneath. Which meant cutting into the vanity itself and hoping I didn’t butcher this beautiful piece of hardwood. My dad always likes to remind me to measure twice cut once, but I was eyeballing those measurements about a dozen times before the first cut.
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We ended up installing six drawers total between the two vanities, which sounds excessive until you try to fit two people’s worth of toiletries into one medicine cabinet. My building was built in 2018, so you’d think all the plumbing would be mocked up for double sinks, but I actually had to reroute some water lines and install additional drain connections which required opening up the wall. To make matters worse, my building only allows renovations between the hours of 9AM-5PM Monday through Friday.
Having people in my bathroom for two weeks but not being able to take a shower until everything was installed was pretty miserable. Speaking of install, it took contractors four days to come complete what was promised as a day and a half project. Mostly because halfway through they discovered the electrical in the cabinets wasn’t where the blueprint said it would be.
We lived four days of showering at the kitchen sink and washing my face with wet wipes while Emma rinsed off her face with bottled water like some absurd camping trip. Emma took the whole debacle in stride, but I could tell she had privately questioned my life choices moving in with someone that voluntarily puts themselves through this. But once it was completed, it was glorious.
We can now shower at the same time without worrying about runoff or negotiating over who gets to use the sink first. Doesn’t sound like much until you’ve lived without it, but those Saturday morning conversations while we’re both getting ready are now one of my favourite parts of the weekend. She’ll catch me up on her week while performing some foam face cleanser ritual as I shave and complain about the new developer at work.
Storage was another game changer. Instead of cramming everything into one narrow medicine cabinet we were forced to downsize to before, we each had our own designated countertop space. Hers was cluttered with face serums and makeup nested in one of those clear drawer dividers she insisted we buy.
Mine had our ~jointly shared~ basics with occasional surprises like contact cleaner, stray razor heads, or that clarifying scrub I bought during COVID and used twice. We went brushed gold taps to match my shower heads I installed last summer. Standard single handle because they’re easier to keep clean and look less flashy.
Emma really wanted the waterfall style taps, but last time I renovated based on an aesthetic andInstagram regret I vowed to never make that mistake again. These look pretty good and actually work well for washing your face and brushing teeth. Individual vanity mirrors with built in LED lighting was by far my favourite decision we made.
I originally wanted to install one large mirror but the electrical guy suggested individual mirrors with their own LED light bars and mate me never looked back.
No more fighting over who got better lighting or holding your mouth funny while Emma put on her makeup. Not to mention the LED lights are bright enough to get ready by but not so intense that you look like death when you wake up at 6:30AM.
All in all I spent roughly $4,000 on the vanity itself, installation fees, rerouting plumbing, mirrors, lighting, and miscellaneous permit fees my building wanted me to spend money on. Not cheap by any means, especially on a tech salary these days, but honestly worth every penny just for the peace of mind it brought Emma and I. She jokes that if we didn’t get the double vanity we would have broken up over “whoever got ready first”, and she might be half joking.
Now half a year later I don’t know how I lived like that before. Friends keep telling me we’re ridiculous for renovating over a bathroom when we have tons of space elsewhere in the flat but I didn’t realise how much I relied on our previous morning routine until we got our double sink. Going from stressful maneuvering around each other to actually enjoying some alone time together while we get ready is pretty insane.
The only con’s been guests and who they “should” use when picking which sink to use. I had my parents over for a visit last month and my mum immediately asked which sink was designated the “guest sink.” Girl just trash talking me behind my back,I assume, but BOTH sinks are used the same way. You don’t see guests asking who owns the couch when they pick where they should sit.
