Maple Vanity for Upstairs Powder Room

HI!

I've always had a fascination for fine woods and Deb appreciates the qualities of fine woods, too. We had planned to put cabinets in the powder room upstairs that our guests will use, but we happened on CS Hardwoods one afternoon last winter and fell in love with the various exotic hardwoods they have in their warehouse. So, we decided to use a slab of fine wood as the vanity top in the powder room.

We toured the showroom of the plumbing supply company at about the same time and fell in like with a hammered copper sink. I say fell in like because the price for the sink was somewhere South of $1,000 ....... too much for one sink!

We walked the CS Hardwoods warehouse and found two absolutely perfect pieces of mesquite, either of which would have worked perfectly for the vanity top. However, both of the pieces were already spoken for by the same person, a woodworker who is evidently using CS Hardwoods as his own personal warehouse. The only odd thing I experienced with all the dealings with CS Hardwoods revolved around pieces in the warehouse that were already spoken for. The woodworker I mentioned has several pieces on hold in CS Hardwoods'  warehouse; he calls for them when he makes a sale and has a commission for a piece. The pieces he has on hold can stay in the CS Hardwoods warehouse for as long as it takes fro him to get a commission .... sometimes many, many months. And, as long as the pieces are on hold, people like Deb and I can look, but without the woodworker's permission, we cannot purchase. Frustrating!

We didn't find THE piece of Mesquite, but we did find a really nice piece of figured Maple. It has what's called a "live edge" which means the the tree bark is still attached to the piece of slab. We try to keep the contours of the live edge, but with this piece being one that will serve a function, we had to remove the bark.

Deb is a Master at using the web to find unique and interesting items for the home. Since the sink we saw and liked so much was soooooo expensive, we decided to search for a more suitable one. Deb found what we were looking for and we ordered and received it soon enough to use it in laying out the table - deciding where to cut and where to place the sink.

Here's the finished product.

Next ..... installation! We'll update this blog when that happens. 

Cheers! 

Deb & Phil