Buying a Bathroom Vanity

S.,

I am a kitchen and bath designer and sell cabinetry, my showroom at the Merchandise Mart has lots of cabinets you can see, and we do vanities all the time. Quotes are free. Would be happy to help! I can also help with other cabinetry as well, outside of my showroom if you would like advice.

Thanks!

A.

I used Pearl Design in Bloomingdale. Their number is ###-###-####. www.pearldesigngroup.com

My sales person is Ron Brands. His wife has been a PC hostsess of mine and was one of my consultants. Great showroom - all price points - beautiful displays. Give him a call!

M. H. in Elk grove Village

We bought ours from Home Depot...but not from the choices in the vanity aisle. You can custom order from the kitchen cabinet department. All the cabinet makers offer vanities from the same colors and doors available for custom kitchens. Ask a kitchen design person to show you the vanities in their catalog. ...many more choices than you would think if you are just looking in the vanitiy aisle. Lowes, The Great Indoors, Menards all have similar options in their kitchen design area. We paid about $700 for a 54" double sink cherry vanity in a simple door style (KraftMaid). You can choose from their pre-designed vanities OR if you want it more custom you can choose the drawers and door cabinets seperately. Our 2nd bath was an awkward size so we went custom there and spent about $900 on a 24" drawer bank and 24" sink base in cherry from KraftMaid (the door style was more expensive than on the first bathroom). It's more expensive this way because you are essentially buying two cabinet boxes, rather than one cabinet box when you choose their pre-designed vanities. ALSO, if you are looking for granite countertops Home Depot has great granite that comes with the undermount sinks installed--and the prices are great. If you prefer to choose your own granite go to a small granite shop and choose from their remnants. You'll pay a lot less...and they usually have a lot of choices. We purchased ours from a shop in Libertyville on Rt 176. There's also another shop I've seen on Allanson Rd in Mundelein (they advertise $29/ft remnants on their sign outside the shop but I haven't been inside to see what they have to offer for that price). Good luck! It will all be so worth it in the end.

There's a great place in Schererville, IN on Rt. 41 about a mile just south of Rt. 30. The name is MTS Supply they have a ton of bath and kitchen ideas. They are a family owned business and they can answer any questions. Their phone number is ###-###-####.

Hobo in Villa Park north ave. or Hobo in Joliet off of Larkin Ave. I have purchased 3 vanities there and they are beautiful and it was an excellent price! Much cheaper than my first house remodel job, when I purchased a custom vanity for thousands of dollars!! Just make sure if you buy a granite counter top vanity from hobo, make sure that the faucets you want to use fit ur vanity...we had difficulty finding ones that fit the pre drilled holes. Good luck!

FUnnythis request came just as my new bath tub is going in, yes at 7:45 p.m. We are redoing our main bath.
We special ordered our vanity from home depot, Iknow youwanted another place other than that. But we did a special order they mase it from kitchen cabinets, in a deep cherry. It really tuurned out nice, is all wood, no veneers, & was a less expensive then the ones that were ready made. There is also fox lumber that does some nice ones. It diod how ever take 3 almost 4 weeks for our special order from Home depot,but once we pulled it outod the packaging, was well worth it, it is really pretty. The granite counter top is a crowning jewel!

I am not sure where you are located but there is a place
called Elmwood Supply in Elmwood Park, IL. It is a great place and is family owned. The staff is very nice and informative.

Try Hobo (Homeowner's Bargain Outlet)-- hobobonline.com. There are 4 in the Chicagoland area-Cresthill, Waukegan, Villa Park & Chicago. They have alot of closeouts--good quality and great prices. It's a great place to shop for a home remodeler. The only thing is you can only get what they have, but everytime I've looked at the vanities, they've had decent choices. We've bought tile & laminate flooring from there for as little as $2/square foot. Good luck!

Try Home Decorators Collection - we have a showroom here in Lake Zurich. They have gorgeous ones & they are not that expensive - not sure your style - but they are much different than what you'll find at the big box contractor stores you mentioned. This company also has a catalog you can get.... Good Luck!

A friend of mine bought a couple from Costco and they are beautiful

I'll put in another vote for HOBOs (we use the one in Villa Park.) Though if you buy the vanity at one of those big box stores, you're not required to let them do the work. Just buy what you want and do it your way.

There is a store called homedecorators on rt 22 in lake zurich area. They also have a web site. Very nice vanities. Good luck.

Wannemaker's, there's one in Downers Grove on Ogden.

Keep in mind that The expo center is going out of business in Oak Brook (i.e. upscale line of Home Depot). This is a wonderful store. Might be a wonderful find or two there. Also... it's a hit-or-miss but HOBO has lots of vanities - not wild about the store but it really is one of those places that I visit from time to time. You can go to a local cabinetry place and give them your measurements but you are going to pay custom prices for custom work. You mentioned Lowes - you can still give them dimensions and do your own installations. They carry a nice line of stock cabinets, as does Home Depot.

Good luck!

You might want to check out Hobo in Villa Park. My brother, who's a plumber goes there a lot, and bought all the fixtures there when he remodeled my bathroom. http://www.hoboonline.com/

Hi there,
You may want to try Studio 41--depending upon where you live.
they've got a pretty large selection. they do have contractors there, but you can certainly just purchase out-right.

Hi S.,
I have shopped at HOBO's on N. Larkin in Joliet, they have bathroom vanity's that you can purchase and the install would be your responsibility. I have purchased tile, an area rug, etc from HOBO's outlet.

I agree with the poster who recommended Home Depot. We special ordered a cherry kraftmaid two sink vanity from them too. Although it would have been nice to give money to an independent retailer, Home Depot's price for the exact same model was much better. We also special ordered our silestone counter, once again, their price was much better. Home depot also contracted out the silestone installation, which was great. We got undermount sinks and our personal contractors told me they were not comfortable doing that install, so having HD's contact was very helpful. The only caveat with counter and vanity install is you MUST have the vanity screwed down into place BEFORE the counter can be measured. So you should order the vanity beforehand (special orders can take 4-5 weeks)to save time.

Try HOBO.There is a location in Indiana and one on the north side

Try IKEA. They actually have some really nice bathroom setups. There are a lot to choose from, both online and in the store, and they are reasonably priced. Good luck!

I think it depends what you are looking for. We put in a marble floor in our powder room and wanted an ornate cabinet with legs (to show the floor) and I really loved the styles at Home Decorators and compared to Expo they were much cheaper. I bought the sink from Home Decorators with a granite top. Very disappointed. The cabinet is some crazy laminate material over pressed something. My 3, now 4 year old likes to play with water and now the cabinet is falling apart. When it chips, there's like this white plaster underneath. I'm not sure if I would buy anything from there again, because although the prices are good, if it doesn't last more than 2-3 years, I would have rather put the money toward something that would hold up more. Our house is 25 years old and the kids bathroom has it's original cabinet/sink, which is wood and although the same child plays with water in that bathroom, he haven't had the problems that destroy the aesthetics of the cabinet. So, I'm left with a gorgeous 2 1/2 year old sink in the powder room that looks like I picked it out of the garbage and a sink that looks very outdated that I won't get rid of till all the kids are grown. Good Luck, hope you find a good sink.

Hobo in Waukegan IL. Low wholesale prices, another place to look into is Habitat for Humanity warehouse around Elgin.

There is a new showroom in Yorkville called St Joseph Cabinetry. It looks very nice & good quality. We also are redoing our master bath & will be looking there soon.

My mother is a kitchen and bath designer with a showroom. She can work in all price ranges due to multiple cabinetry vendors. She can be reached at ###-###-#### or cabinetryshowcase.net. Her showroom is at 5945 N Milwaukee in Chicago.