Bathroom vanity height

[Keith Thomas]

I was just getting ready to start building our bathroom vanity. I am still pretty rusty having only built one set of cabinets recently and they were painted so mistakes were easy to cover up lol.
I designed it so the case would be 38" heigh total. That would put the counter height at just a little over 39". But now I'm wondering if that is a little to high. Any suggestions would be nice.

 

[Darren Wright]

I assume you're tall Keith. Are the other members of the house as tall?

I'm 6' and built mine at 36" tall, but my wife being a few inches shorter though it was a good idea, but she constantly complains about it being too tall when she washes her face at night. She can't lean low enough to make the water drip in the sink rather than running down her chest, luckily she had built in drip edges, but that just directs it to the floor.

Edit: Another consideration is where the water and drain trap sits, be sure to allow for the dip in the trap and any room you need around the valves for working on them. I had one vanity I built in the past and had to get creative with the drain to raise it to where it would work and not have to cut the drawer out that I put below.

 

[Robert Horky]

if you do a google search you will see the 'standard' height is about 32". This old standard is now moving more towards 36", same a kitchen counters.
If you have shorter people (children, etc.), you may want to go shorter.

 

[Keith Thomas]

That is a good point about my wife being shorter than me. I have seen that the new standard is 36" off the floor. and I thought 39" wouldn't be that much of a stretch but my wife is 5" shorter than me and 3 extra inches could mean the difference between working well and being hard to deal with. I wanted to add a special feature so I wanted the box to be a little over 38" high and then about 3/4" of tile and mortar would have put me where I wanted . I'm going to re plan this and make the box 36" high so after the tile the counter height will still be 36" (then again she could always stand on something lol)

 

[Don Baer]

In our master Bath our vanity is split with one sinde down low and the other about 4 or 5 inches higher so my wife used the short side and I the higher one.

 

[steve ramsey]

Don't forget to take in the addition height if you are installing a vessel style bowl that sits on top of the vanity.

 

[Keith Thomas]

its a regular under mount sink. I decided to make the case 36-3/4" high. there will be 1/2" to 3/4" of tile so the vanity top will end up being roughly 37" with the granite. I'm still worried I made a mistake there but we did a little test at the kitchen sink which is 36" high and my wife says 37 will work for her. It would only be if anyone shorter wanted to wash their face as Darren suggested. Wifey said she won't have a problem but I can now imagine a year later :
"why did you make this so high? It makes a mess every time I use it. I don't remember you asking me about that!" lol.