A Vanity For My Little Girl

This article was originally posted on The Wood Whisperer.

Summary

Marc Spagnuolo builds a durable, adaptable vanity for his 8-year-old daughter after a flimsy store-bought version failed. The piece includes two continuous-grain base drawers and a removable hutch with two drawers and a door housing a lighted mirror, allowing it to convert into a full-time desk. He also offers a 19‑video Guild course with downloadable PDF and SketchUp plans, and lists the hardware, tools, and finishes used.

Which feature would you prioritize for a kid-friendly vanity—removable hutch for future desk use, continuous-grain drawers, or the lighted mirror—and why?

My daughter Ava has been asking me to build a vanity for years. I intentionally avoided it primarily because I didn’t want to build something really nice only for her to outgrow it in a year or two. Nicole purchased a small pink kids vanity off Amazon and sure enough, that thing was absolutely destroyed by crayons, markers, lipstick and general abuse and it ultimately ended up in a landfill. Finally, at 8 years old, I felt Ava was ready for a real piece of furniture. So I set myself to task of building a vanity for my little girl.

The vanity features two continuous grain drawers in the base as well as a hutch unit that contains two drawers and a door with a lighted mirror. The vanity will also serve as a desk and the hutch is removable should she ever decide to convert it to full-time desk duty.

If you’d like to build this project, we have a full 19 video course in the Wood Whisperer Guild. You’ll received downloadable PDF and SketchUp plans and all of the detailed video instruction you can possibly ask for.