Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

Rennie Heuer

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Constantine, MI
Starting a new project this week. Two vanities for a customer in Kalamazoo.

All face frame, door and drawer parts will be hard maple except the inset panels. Casework will be prefinished ply, and the base will likely be poplar.

I like to build the base separate so it can be more easily leveled. Then the case can simply be set on top and attached to the wall.

Face frame construction will be pocket hole screws. So will the case but adjoining sheets of plywood will fit into shallow (1/32") dados. This keeps the panel from wandering when the pocket screws go in and also removes the prefinished veneer so I can add some glue to the joint. Have not decided on drawer construction. Had initially planned on lock rabbets - I might go with half blind dovetails if things are going well. Slides will be undermount soft close. Hinges are soft close also.

The larger vanity has a cabinet on the left end (under the off center sink) and a pull out trash can drawer on the right. If clearances allow the drawer fronts in front of the basins will have tip out trays.
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You're killing it on the bringing in business side (y)

Looks pretty straight forward as far as these things go.

So the cabinets don't attach to the base at all? Do you fasten them back to the wall as well to keep them from wandering?
 
Actually, I won’t be doing the installation. The bases are leveled and attached the the wall or floor. Cabinets usually are only attached to the wall and sit on shims. This way it is a lot easier to get things level because you have full and unobstructed access too all parts of the base and you can check level every which way.
 
Got the plywood portion of the smaller vanity done yesterday. Hope to get the wood portion done today. I plowed a shallow (1/32") dado for all the connections. Just enough to remove the finished layer to give me a good glue joint and deep enough to give me a small lip to lock things in place while I screw it all together. I don't want to go any deeper with the dado because some of these joints will get pocket screws and I don't want to take the chance of them poking through.
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rennie as i see it you dont need the toe kick indent, you use the base method and it gives you the toe kick you make a square bottom that extends the 3 inches for toe kick.. or you have no base and then build in the toe kick
 
rennie as i see it you dont need the toe kick indent, you use the base method and it gives you the toe kick you make a square bottom that extends the 3 inches for toe kick.. or you have no base and then build in the toe kick
I thought that too but when I test fit everything the center sagged so much it was impossible to check for square. That toe kick acts to support the bottom and keep it flat. The base will fit in behind it and the maple front will go over it - I left the extra 3/4" depth.
 
Moving along well Rennie. The drawer-lock is my go-to drawer joint in most cases, Quick, nice looking, self-squaring and very reliable. Question on the table extrusions (Kreg, I think) . . . Do you find them useful beyond the pocket-hole joinery sort of thing? Do you use them for stops, squaring and so forth?

I'm planning a rolling table for the new shop. In typical Bradley-fashion I am trying to make it as useful as possible without turning it into a Rube Goldberg monstrosity. One of the things I had considered was t-track or dovetail grooves (for Match-fit clamps and stops) in a pattern on the top. Your thoughts?
 
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