It's My Island. Gilligan owes me rent.: I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.

Vanity is the art of making sure you put your best face forward to face down the world every day.

Therefore, reality check: the bathroom is all about the vanity.

Think about it: yes, we brake for a superb shower, topple for a terrific tub, but where do we focus when we enter the loo (unless, yknow -)? The vanity.

We rarely toilette in our bedrooms now, seeing they are sanctuaries from life. So it makes sense to get the vanity that works for you.

But #FFS, no vanity is worth more than $500. I DO NOT CARE WHO MAKES IT. I saw vanities priced at close to TWO-FREAKING-THOUSAND DOLLARS. Were they pretty? Yeah. But bimbos age badly too.

I did not want to spend more than $425.00 on a vanity. It's a small world, after all, in my weirdly laid-out bathroom. I can't do massive, especially since the sink is in front of the door and boxed in by the tub. I basically have a maximum of 30" of space and 20" D available for a vanity. And I hate doors. You basically wind up with a disorganized closet floor full of bins you have to move every time you need to change the damn roll.

After many visits and much internet searching and Ikea-Hack-Thoughts, I decided on this:

Hemnes, 60cm, $149.00 CAD

The Ikea Hemnes 60-cm (24" in American) vanity. And it was on sale for $126 CAD when I bought it in white, considering that I may or may not alter the colour (less priming required). Plus it had open, accessible floor space which makes rescuing Probie's mousie toys easier AND gives me a place to stash a bin o' cleaners.

I insist on drawers in vanities. I like order, method and Inspector Japp, even if he doesn't reciprocate. Clutter vexes me. And when I'm semi-pre-coffee-comatose in the AM, you don't want me to have to scramble to find stuff much for the same reason I don't listen to anything but the CBC - it makes me stabby. There is a place for everything and everything has its place and a little pragmatic design makes me less likely to do unnatural things to your corpse if I have a bad morning.

Is it perfect? No. But swiping the crystal knobs off my old vanity makes it something more elegant and sand-prime-sand-paint-polycrylic-coat is not that freaking hard to do. The Godmorgen inserts (or derivations/solutions available at HOMESENSE) which do work in Hemnes help.