The great Sink Debate caused work on the bathroom to halt.
Pedestal hugging vanity units had been explored. We looked around a bg chain bathroom store, but couldn't see naything - everything was aimed at people who were buying everything new.Very cheap ones were available online (although I never found them in a real shop). Very cheap-looking-but -not-cheap ones
were available.
The trip round the bathroom shop looking at vanity units made me realise that I really liked some of the wall hung ones, with drawers instead of doors, but these weren't
suitable because our pipes come up from the floor.
I was surprised that some of the new units were a lot of money and still felt cheap.
It was going to cost a reasonable chunk of money, and still look like we'd done a bodge job, so I eventually broached the subject of maybe replacing the sink. Keeping the expensive and lovely taps, but not the sink.
I did some research online, until my head started to swim.
I looked for vanity units with sinks which would accommodate 3 tap holes. There are fewer than I expected, and those that I found easily were too ornate for my taste. Ornate and dirt trap types. The current fashion is for monoblocs. I did find a company that would drill additional holes in their sinks, so I had a look at those, but I couldn't see that our tap would really work (the nose - or whatever you call the bit that the water comes out - wasn't long enough).
I did find one that was sort of OK. It was a bit ornate, the cabinet was wooden. It was a mortifying £1200. That was a lot of money to pay for something that was only "OK". I realised that, even though my existing tap set was horrendously expensive, I could probably buy a new sink,unit and tap for a lot less than that the cost of buying a new sink and vanity unit for my existing taps.
DH and I went to another bathroom showroom, this time looking at vanity units and sinks, and the subject of the taps was raised. So, this time, we were looking at a complete thing. We saw a few that were OK, I made a note of the names, but this was just a "fact finding" foray.
Bck home, I looked online. It was no good, I had to see the things in the flesh.
A couple of days later, I decided to venture to another retailer, and picked one in a nearby town. I traipsed round their (what turned out to be) enormous showroom, and found a few possibilities.
I came up with a longlist. Then I realised that some of the vanity spaces weren't very tall, the bottles of cleaner wouldn't be able to stand up in there. So I traipsed round again, taking photos and notes. I even found a tap style I quite liked.
It was promising.
The lady was lovely.
At home I showed DH, and said we should go back to look to see what he thought. So that's what we did yesterday morning. We got it down to the choice of 2. They were completely different to each other. One was a very straight sided basin, on a white gloss vanity unit (something I never thought I'd have, but it looked good and the drawers felt good when I opened it); the other was the same shape, but a sloping basin , on a wooden cupboard. Thewhite gloss might actually work better, as we were having wood on the floor, so wooden drawers might be a bit too much.
Sadly, it turned out the drawer mounted version wasn't any use. The cupboard version of that range might have been, but they didn't have one on show. I tried to explain to the plumber owner that I needed to feel how the doors opened and closed....that often some of the doors look OK and shut OK but feel like crap when you open them.
He looked at me and nodded, and I could see that he was really thinking "what the heck are you on about?".
For the other range, I wasn't sure about the wood finish. Plus it was a cupboard and I wanted drawers. Theat manufacturer did do a drawer versionm but it was very deep. It would look like we'd tried to put a kitchen unit in our bathroom (which, in fact, I had already considered and discounted). I didn't think the cupboard version wuld liook right in white gloss.
Alongside this, we discussed the tap I liked. DH explained to me why
it might not work too well. I explained why I liked it. It was a
pleasant enough looking tap and it swivelled. This meant that
you can move it out of the way before spitting out toothpaste. It meant
that it would be easier to clean the sink. It meant there was more
elbow room in the sink (not that I use the sink for elbows). It was
quite a high, long, tap, but not so high and long that it looked like an
out-of-place kitchen tap.
DH said that the reach of the tap might be a problem on the second, slopey
basin. He showed me what he meant. On the first basin, it was level,
so it didn't really matter where the tap water hit. On the second
basin, if it hit the slope we might end up with a mighty backsplash.
I
found myself thinking, "Well, that's that then. We'll have to buy the
first basin". I was a but surprised, I hadn't realised that I was so
attached to the tap. I hadn't even really looked at many - but I was
finding that the tap was going to help me choose the basin!
At this point, DH - understandably - had had enough. I suggested that we went away and thought about it, I could visit a couple of places on my own to look at taps and to see if I could find the cupboard version of the first sink for us to look at. He was adamant that either of the two were fine with him, and could see no point in delaying.
We measured the tap carefully. We measured the sinks and compared them. Really, the obvious choice was the first sink, but I wasn't ready to order without seeing the cupboard first.
So.
Of course. We bought the least suitable sink - the slopey one, on a vanity cupboard, and we had the havana oak finish. And the tap. Which is not at all the shape and style that I had thought I wanted. Without looking at what other tap manufacturers have to offer.
And all for a huge amount less than the "OK" option.
What if I was just suffering from shopping fatigue? That's when an individual ends up buying stuff which they loater look at and wonder "what the heck...?
I hope I still like it when it arrives
