Crafting a vanity with product designer Lucan Donovan

Lucan Donovan likes to have a clear vision and as the head of design at St Michel, he helps to bring many bathroom furniture designs to life.

“Traditionally, a lot of people wouldn’t think that the vanity is as important as it is; it can often be a secondary thought when it comes to colourways,” says Lucan, who established the design department for St Michel over 15 years ago. “But when you think about it, it’s the only furniture in that space. When people are in their lounge or dining room, furniture usually isn’t an afterthought – it’s their primary goal.”

As well as being the only piece of furniture usually in the bathroom, he explains that the vanity can double as a statement piece if designed well. However, with it being a fixed element of the room, it’s vital homeowners give the selection process “due consideration”.

“If you have regrets later, then switching out a plumbed and tiled vanity can be a costly undertaking,” says Lucan. “If unsure, engage a bathroom design professional who can guide you through storage requirements and your preferred design aesthetic.”

We sat down with Lucan to learn about the versatile, award-winning City 50 range and how to make the right bathroom vanity design choices…

LD: The colourway of your vanity should be considered alongside your wall tiles and floor selection, and it shouldn’t be an afterthought. The colour of your bathroom vanity is an opportunity to do something that sets the bathroom space off.

It’s a constant balancing act – you need to look at your tiles, your tapware, handle accent colour and your vanity finish. You want to be considering all of these together as early as you can, because time allows you to come up with good design decisions.

With the City 50 range, you have the option of accent strips which are available in gold, titanium, or silver. Depending on what you’re doing with the other architectural detailing and fixtures such as tapware, you’ll have a starting point of what you want your accent strips in this piece of furniture to be.

LD: The round vessel basin shapes are always a favourite, whether it be the more classic bowl shape or a more modernised straight, thin-sided version. Rectangle and square shapes softened by rounded corners that can provide more basin space are also popular.

Coloured basins in a variety of finishes are also growing in popularity, such as our Dusky Matte Black from our Italian supplier Galassia.

There are different basin brands available at different price points. The City 50 range has 30 basin options, enough choice to allow people to price their product up or down depending on what they want – whether that’s an Italian brand or one that is more affordable. But overall, round bowls are timeless, aesthetically flexible, and complimentary to different interior styling, so are always a popular choice.

LD: The City 50 gets all 13 benchtops that we currently manufacture. We have the Cherry Pie selection, which is an acrylic solid surface material that creates the realistic look of natural stone and allows for repairs and cutting to size with woodworking tools onsite.

We also have our HPL Soft-Matt vanity benchtops – a new premium product that’s soft to touch and fingerprint resistant – as well as HPL Woodgrain tops, which are sourced from local timber suppliers.

LD: I work a lot with our suppliers to develop certain colours. With the City 50, there are over 400 various cabinet colour combinations to choose from. With our ‘design blends’, a customer can pick different colours for the front and sides. Alternatively, they could simply choose one colour for the whole cabinet.

Cabinetry sizing can be anything between 700–2400mm. We spent years making custom vanities in all different sizes, but one-off designs come at added cost. The City 50 was created in part to meet the demand for exact sizing. To create this flexibility, we use a combination of oversized benchtops and some clever colour-matched spacing kits that allow installers to get a perfect fit onsite every time.

LD: Don’t be afraid to take a risk with the colour of the drawer front because at a later date, you can swap that colour out if you decide to because we can make a new one for you. It’s a very easy process – with our simple video instruction, even a homeowner can have the old drawer front off in a few seconds and install the new one. It allows you to be a little bit more fearless, knowing that at a later date you can swap it out.

LD: There’s a perception that going to an interior designer or bathroom designer will cost a lot of money, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Bathrooms are a complicated space with a lot of tradesmen walking in and out of the space – and if you mismanage the process, you’ll easily lose money. Something might be overcharged because a plumber has to return for a second time, or the cabinet installer or electrician has to come twice because things weren’t where they needed to be. Don’t undervalue professional help.

Visit the St Michel showroom to view the range, or learn more on ArchiPro.

The City 50 wall-to-wall and its unique plumbing solution was recognised by Master Plumbers at its New Zealand Plumbing Awards 2022, winning the 2022 Product of the Year – Highly Commended award.