Corner Bathroom Vanities – The Ultimate Space Saving Solution For A Small Bathroom

There are tons of ways to get the most out of a small bathroom, but balancing saving floor space and making more storage space – especially private storage space – isn’t always easy. Shelves are nice for utilizing horizontal space, and separate storage cabinets are great if you have the room for them, but sometimes you just need somewhere to hide your unmentionables – and that means closed storage, no matter how small your bathroom. Corner bathroom vanities are the best way to get the most closed cabinet space while taking up the least floor space possible – no area is wasted, and unlike some other compact bathroom vanities, ones that fit neatly into a corner utilize all the space they take up.

Take this Coda corner vanity from Fresca, for example – like a typical contemporary bathroom vanity or cabinet, it has a square, relatively unadorned face made of simple lines paired with a crisp, clean white finish, but it takes up about half the space of more conventional vanities that are the same width. While a typical 30-36″ bathroom vanity protrudes from the wall, taking up precious floor space, corner bathroom vanities occupy the least usable space in the bathroom, literally cutting corners that you probably weren’t using anyway.

This is actually a bigger deal than it might seem. While a conventional or even modern bathroom vanities designed for a smaller bathroom – say, in a modern urban setting or an older cottage style home – seek to maximize storage space with the smallest possible footprint, they run into a simple problem – if you put them right up against a wall at a 90 degree angle, you’re going to be bumping elbows with your light switch, and if you don’t, you’re simply making your bathroom less efficient. Corner bathroom vanities like this Anglo Vanity from Modetti answer this problem by turning 45 degrees and facing you outward into a widening space.

That way, not only are corner bathroom vanities physically taking up less space, they’re also giving you a little more room to move. Instead of having one side flat up against a wall, or wasting space to make a little elbow room, corner bathroom vanities make a simple change that affords you all the standing room you need, again in the otherwise least-useful space in your bathroom. Paired with a corner mounted medicine cabinet, and very accessible internal storage, really the only difference you might notice is the slightly smaller sink on something like this ultra-petite Coda 14″ Vanity.

As well, in the same way that many other compact bathroom vanities alternate between increasing storage area and visually expanding your bathroom, some corner bathroom vanities also strike a balance between white space, closed storage, and accessibility. Particularly minimalist models might offer little more than a sink, faucet, and surface space paired with towel bars mounted to the underside. This Ordinato vanity is a more extremely pared down example, but ultimately offers a good amount of functionality for a very limited space.

That said, corner bathroom vanities aren’t all bare-bones. Some designs can be larger, or more colorful or ornate. From simple and contemporary to traditional and elegantly antique-inspired, it shouldn’t be hard to find one in a style and color or wood stain to match your decor. The biggest differences are ultimately in the shape of the front face. Most corner vanities have a large front face and minimal side panels, but slightly larger ones bump the front out a little farther, giving the whole piece a diamond-shaped base (and even more storage space!). This makes the storage way in the back of something like this Anglo vanity a little harder to reach, but those triangular shelves can hold a LOT more stuff than you might expect.

It might seem a little counter-intuitive, but cutting your vanity in half and putting it in a corner can actually offer you more storage space than many more conventional smaller bathroom vanities. Even if you’re sacrificing a little storage, you might make up enough floor space to add a separate storage cabinet! Corner vanities can be a bit of an oddball choice, and will take a little looking to find, but if you’re stuck with a truly small bathroom, they might just be the storage solution you’ve been looking for.