Bathroom Sink

First, I want you to look at this picture:

Nice, right? That was my inspiration for the entire bathroom remodel. And I loved it. I was completely content to copy it down to the last detail. I even blogged about it over here.

Then, as with most remodels everything changed.

Recreating this picture was going to require us to move the sink plumbing from one wall to the opposite wall and if you know anything about plumbing (and I don't) you know that would be no simple task. In addition, I had been googling 1920's era bathrooms and in none of them was there a wall of custom cabinets or a marble countertop (which, by the way, would cost a small fortune to acquire) as in the above picture. The ones that I favored had a pedestal sink something like these: 

With a very large, functional top. After all, if I was going to forego those beautiful cabinets I was going to have to have somewhere to sit my makeup and our toothbrushes...

or, in this person's case, my tiny little vase of flowers.

 Now, I realize that we are not in the business of restoring this home to it's original glory (see the previous post about busting the old tile out with a sledgehammer rather than trying to keep it), but I still could not bring myself to deviate from the design that was originally suited for this bathroom. And so, I set out to find a sink. There were a couple of models at The Home Depot that would have sufficed but they were missing that certain something that only comes with age. The next option was Craigslist and after searching our area and a couple of towns south of us (Oklahoma City, Tulsa) I was feeling like it wasn't going to happen. That was until I searched the Kansas City area. Out of a list of about 12 or so "antique pedestal sinks" I clicked on one near the bottom and found a description and a few pictures that piqued my interest. I forced my mom and Conan to stop whatever they were doing and come look. Had we found our sink? They were just as intrigued as I was. After all, this sink had...wait for it...no holes for a faucet or fixtures! That's right. No holes. Just one beautiful, little porcelain pull knob for the stopper. After a week of asking everyone who would listen whether or not we should drive three hours to buy a sink, I decided on Saturday night that it was just too neat to pass up. So, on Sunday we made the drive up, met a wonderful couple with just as much of a passion for interesting, old houses as we have and picked up our sink.

Maggie inspected it and found it up to her high, high sink standards. Seriously though, that giant lip around the edge, aside from being practical from a makeup standpoint is also perfect for a cat to sit on and play with the water coming out of the tap.

Now comes the task of finding a wall mount fixture that comes out from the wall far enough/looks appropriate with the rest of the bathroom. I've searched and searched for anything about bathroom sinks from this era that would have had wall mount faucets and have come up empty. I even sent a desperate email to "Ask This Old House" but I haven't heard anything yet and probably never will. Regardless, so far I've come up with this:

This bad boy from Copper Sinks Online might be the best looking but at $380 it's a little too rich for my blood. Luckily, I think I found the same faucet on Plumber Surplus for a little less if this is the one we go with. The only problem I have with it is that it's very, very chrome. That's not a bad thing but I would prefer that the handles were porcelain. So, I'm thinking about replacing them with something like these from Period Bath:

Well, that's all for now folks. More pictures to come when there are pictures worth posting. I'm off to scrape the old glazing off the bathroom window, which is another post for another time. Until then...