If you've got an old bathroom vanity
that you want to upgrade, a wall hung vanity
is a great option, especially if you're short on floor space.
Now on a job like this, we'll be using a plumber
as some pipes will need to be rerouted, and this kind of job
needs to be done by a licensed plumber.
But the rest you'll be right by yourself.
If you're simply replacing like for like in the same location
and are using a licensed plumber,
then you won't need any council permits or consent.
But if you're thinking of changing
the location of your vanity considerably,
then you'd better check with your local council.
OK, so the old vanity's starting to look a little bit tired,
so I've decided to upgrade that with a wall hung vanity.
I've already turned the water off at the mains.
Now, it's time to crack into it.
The first thing I'm going to do is just remove the door.
Now in this situation, we just push the button
at the back of the hinge, and that just pops off.
It's just going to allow me a lot more room to work.
So the next thing we need to do is remove our waste.
So I need to unscrew that and also cut it off at the bottom.
Usually, there'll be water in your traps,
so just have a little bucket on hand just to capture anything.
Now that's exposed our pipes at the back,
so now I just need to unscrew our pipes
and then we'll cap it off.
Now, it's a good little tip here to turn all the other taps
in that house on to release residual water and pressure
so less water spills out here.
It's also a great idea to quickly label
the pipes hot and cold to make sure you reconnect
to your tap where correctly.
So I've got myself some thread tape here.
I'm just going to wrap that around our pipes
that are sticking out of the wall and then put on our caps.
Now when you do buy your caps, just
make sure you've got the right size for your pipes.
Next, unscrew the vanity fixings.
So we're just about ready to remove our vanity.
There's one other job we have to do.
That's removing the silicone that's
holding the vanity to the wall.
And more than likely, you'll have a bead of silicone
around the base of your vanity to the floor.
To do that, you can either use a silicon removal tool or utility
knife.
Cool, so I'm now ready to get rid of our old vanity.
Now to do that, I'm just going to wiggle that off the wall
and just lift that over our waste pipe
that's coming up through the floor.
So this is my lovely new vanity.
Now, I've also decided to go with a slightly wider vanity.
I've checked, and it's going to fit in there quite nicely.
Now before we kick on, there's a couple of key points
to remember when installing one, and that's making sure that you
get it at the correct height.
I've knocked together this little cradle
to support the vanity so I can work alone.
Now the standard height for a wall hung vanity
is 850 to 900 millimetres.
And if you are installing a vanity
with a vessel basin on top, it's 950 millimetres
to the top of that bowl.
OK, so I now need to find out exactly where my fixing
points are on this vanity.
OK, now as you can see, our fixing points
are going through these nice strong brackets here--
one on either side.
So what I'm going to do is get those measurements
of exactly where they are.
To do that, I'm just going to measure
the exact width of the vanity, which is 900 millimetres.
So I'm just going to put a centre line,
and then I'm just going to measure from that centre line
to the centre of our holes.
That's just making sure that our holes are
in exactly the same position.
That's 382, and that's 382 as well.
So the next thing I need to do is just get the height from
the top of our vanity to the centre of that hole.
So that's 45 millimetres.
And the height of my vanity from the floor
to the top of the vanity is 870 millimetres.
But now I do have this little bit of an upstand on the back
there, so I need to get that height as well.
So that's 878 millimetres.
Now, we need to go over to the wall
and put our heights on the wall.
So now I'm just going to take our height to the back
of our vanity, which was 878.
So now we need to know exactly where in the room this sits.
Now, I'm going to utilise the old pipes.
Now, the centre of these pipes was the centre of the old
vanity.
So I really like that vanity.
Even though our new one is wider,
it still sits in here comfortably.
So I'm going to get the centre of those pipes and mark that
centre on our height.
OK, from our centre mark, we can now mark the overall width
of our vanity.
So our vanity's 900 millimetres.
So I'm just going to go 450 either side of that.
OK, now that we've got our level height of our vanity,
we can now put on our fixing locations.
OK, so I'm just going to mark the location of the centre
of our hole, which was 382.
And the dimension down from the top of the vanity, which is 45
millimetres.
I'm going to circle that so I know exactly where our hole is,
and I'm going to do the same on the other side.
And then I'll use my stud finder to check
for framing behind these fixing points to take the vanity.
This will also identify any pipes or wires I need to avoid.
OK, the good news is I don't have
any wires or pipes I'm going to hit when I cut into the wall.
The bad news is I don't have any solid fixing points,
so I'm going to have to remove a section of this wall board
to install some.
Just before I crack into it, we already
know the exact width and height of our vanity.
So now from those marks, I'm going
to come 50 mil in from each side, 50 mil down from the top,
and 50 mil up from the bottom of the vanity.
The reason I'm coming in on the edges
is so that the hole I cut, once repaired,
is still fully covered by the vanity.
Just about to chop out our hole in the wall.
Now, there's a few different ways we can go about this.
One, I could use my utility knife with a straight edge,
or I could use a hand saw even.
But I'm going to use a multi tool,
and it's also got a wallboard blade on it.
Now, regardless of what our stud finder says,
best practice says we're only going
to go the thickness of our wallboard
just in case there is something in there
that our stud finder didn't pick up.
OK, now that the wall's open, it's
a great time for the plumber to come in, transfer the waste
from the floor into the wall.
Now, my pipes are in a great location.
Just check out to see if yours need moving.
Now that the plumber's been in and installed our waste
into the wall, I can now put in all our solid fixing.
So we know exactly where those are because we've
got our marks on the wall.
So all I have to do is measure inbetween our studs that we've
got within the wall to put in our solid fixing.
So in my situation I've got a solid stud top
to bottom over here and also right around this side.
So I know when I cut my nogs, I've got something to fix into.
But in your situation, you're just
going to have to see exactly where you're
solid fixing points are before you put your nogs in.
One at 319.
Sweet.
Now that I've got our first couple of measurements,
I can go off and cut those.
I'm using bugle screws with my drill
to fix these nogs in place.
So there's no risk of damaging any pipes or plaster
with the slip of a hammer.
I'm also going to cut and install
solid fixings along the edges of this hole for my new piece
of wallboard to fix onto.
OK, so all my solid fixings are in to take my vanity
and also for my wallboard.
Now, I've already cut my wallboard,
and I've marked out for all our holes.
All I have to do is drill it and attach it to the wall.
Now, I'm using a holesaw to drill the holes for my pipe
work.
Take a look at our "Easy As--
How to Re-line a Room" for some tips on cutting and replacing
wallboard.
Just before we put our wallboard to the wall, what
I'm going to do is just mark the location
of exactly where our pipe work goes just to make sure
that I don't screw into it.
OK, now this is also a great opportunity
just to take a photograph of dimensions of everything
in your wall before you cover it up.
And if you're working on an external wall,
make sure you install building paper and insulation.
So what I'm doing now is I'm just adding a couple of daubs
of glue on that centre stud only.
I'm not going to add any of this wallboard adhesive
where we're going to put our screws.
So now, let's put in our wallboard.
So I'm just putting in these plasterboard screws
approximately every 150 millimetres.
And I'm putting them on either side of the joint
to make sure it's nice and secure.
Now, it's not council regulations
to actually stop that wall with some plaster,
but what I will do is just put some sealant in there.
And then wipe away any excess.
OK, so I'm just going to start by marking out
all our dimensions from our pipe work on the wall
onto the back of our vanity so I can start drilling that out.
Once I've marked the position and diameter of my three pipes,
I'm just going to use this holesaw to drill our holes.
What I'm going to do is just go so the tip of the drill bit
goes through, and then I'm going to open up the cabinet
and then drill from the other side.
If I was to drill the whole away from this side here,
it's just going of blow the inside open.
And change drill bits for the smaller water pipe holes.
And now, I'll flip the vanity around
and drill from the other side.
I'm just using a holesaw bit that's
about 5 millimeters bigger than the hole.
It just gives me a little bit to play with when
I slip the vanity into place.
So all I have to do now--
push that up against the wall and fix it
into our new solid fixings.
And then I'll just slip my cradle out,
pop my vanity drawers back in, and position the top.
OK, so all the hard work's done.
The vanity's safely secured to the wall.
All I need to do now is get the plumber in,
connect all those bits up, and then silicone across the top.
Now there's one other thing that we
do have to silicone is the top to the vanity.
I'm going to ensure that the plumber does that.
To finish the room off, I need to repair the hole in the floor
from our old waste pipe.
In this case, I'll get the vinyl layer in.
And if you have tiles, take a look at our "Easy As--
How to Replace a Broken Tile."
Now if you've got a wooden tongue and groove
floor with a hole in it, I'm going show to you
how to make a tapered wooden plug to fix it.
If you had a hole that's anything bigger than about 90,
100 millimeters, then I would suggest
that you cut your floorboards back on your joist line.
Now in my situation, I've got a 45 mil
hole from where the pipe came through the floor.
So I'm just going to square this hole.
So I'm going to use my jigsaw to do that,
and I've set the table here to about 5 to 10 degree angle.
So when I cut the hole out, all four sides will be tapered in.
Right.
Now that I've squared the hole in the floor,
I need to cut a tapered plug from a spare floorboard
to plug the hole.
I'm using my mitre saw to cut the angle,
but you could use a handsaw in the same way.
OK, plug's all cut and looking really good.
All I've got to do--
add a little bit of glue, squeeze it in nice and tight.
So I've cut this one or two mil bigger than the hole
just so it sticks up above our floorboards
so we can plane and sand that off later.
Now when you put the plug in, just
make sure that the grain is going in the same direction
as your floorboards.
And we'll just squeeze that in with a bit of persuasion.
Now, I've just cut this little bit of a packer
here to sit on top.
That's just going to keep a little bit of pressure
on the floor.
You don't have to do that if you don't want to,
but I just want to make sure that that glue goes
off nice and tight in the hole.
OK, so all we got to do is just let that dry overnight.
OK, take out our little packer.
All right, now as you can see, this
is just sticking up a couple of millimetres.
Now you could use a belt sander or an orbital sander
to kick that down level with the floor.
But what I'm going to do is just start it off with a hand plane.
You could use a block plane if you like
and just get that down a little bit lower so all I have to do
is minimal work with the sander.
Now, all we have to do is work out
what coating you're going to put on the floor.
And we're done.
That's definitely an upgrade.
It makes the whole bathroom look better and feel bigger.
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