Please post a picture of those hot guys playing football. :-P

JaneyMac:

If you're in NYC and need help, email me at iloveupstate (a) gmail.com and I'll give you the name/number of the handyman I use. He could do the vanity/sink and light for you in an hour or two. He's a nice guy and usually charges me less than $125 to do similar jobs. In case you don't want to break a nail (which is how I often feel! LOL).

This is no help at all, but oh my god that's hideous! When it was brand new do you think someone stood back from their handy work and said, "Now that's class."?

You can keep the fluoro but switch out the bulb for a shade that's less harsh.

http://www.toolsforwellness.com/40wat48fluor.html

The vanity looks to be in pretty poor condition...I think you should at least ask the landlord about replacing it...especially if it "accidentally" breaks.

Don't underestimate your chances of getting the landlord to cover some of your costs. Once you figure out what you want to do and how much it will cost, you could approach him with the pictures, get him/her to agree that it looks bad, and then ask if he would pay for the supplies and plumber if you do all the rest. If he's not open to that, see if he'll pay for just one of those, and so forth....

I once redid a crumbling ceiling (I used five pounds of plaster in just one corner!) and painted a whole one-bedroom apartment, including closets and cabinets.... and I got my landlord to pay for *half* of my supplies/material. Can you believe it? At the time I felt lucky, and he was so amicable about it (and cheap - I didn't have all my receipts, and he wouldn't take my word on anything that wasn't receipted; he was really concerned about getting it down to the lowest dollar he could). But NOW I feel like a fool. Just think of all the labor I did, and the *major* improvements I made - I should have at least made him repair the ceiling, if not pay for *all* materials.

But so far, in my many apartments, I must say I've left each and every place in significantly better shape than I've found it. I try not to get bitter about this, and try to think of it as reflecting well on me. But I don't do it to think well of myself, I do it *because I want to live in a better place*, and I would love a little more help with that than I've gotten!

(Ah, but I shouldn't leave out mention of my last NYC landlords, who were actually so impressed with my improvements and general can-do kind of taking care of their place that they lowered my rent twice from $1500 to $1250 - ! (I had to ask, but they seemed happy to oblige - twice!)) Made a big difference to me.

In my old apartment I bought a new sink and vanity on craigslist from someone remodeling their brand new condo bathroom for $60- you can get a decent looking one brand new for around $100 for both at Home Depot. I also swapped out my light fixture with another craigslist find-$20. The install was really easy- you ust need an home repair book, some plumber's tape and putty, a wrench and a little patience. Electrical was a little scary the first time I did it, but really very easy. Just make sure to shut off the main breaker and have someone in the apartment with you when you do it- just in case.

Good luck! At least you have nice neutral tile. You'll have it looking better in no time.

That is even nastier than mine. I vote for a vanity malfunction, but make sure the landlord knows you pay regularly first, then figure out a way to make it collapse.

I am a bit amazed that someone would rent out an apartment with that junk, but standards do vary across the country and maybe you're getting what you paid for.

If worse comes to worse and there is no budget, then glue and nail it back together. Remove the hardware. Sand the crap out of it, prime it and paint it. Get some cheap nickel knobs from Restoration Hardware, Target, Lowes or HomoDepot.

Voila! At least it would look clean.

Ohmigod, that's the vanity in the apartment I bought which is pretty high on the list of repairs/replacements/improvements as I can afford them (it actually came after floors) It's unspeakable. Someone put them in all the apartments in my building in the mid-1960s, and they were cheap&nasty then.

Question about fluorescent light (I have one in the kitchen, also on the hit list) -- apart from repainting, what sort of repair/cosmetic work to the ceiling can I expect -- my fluorescent light is one of those long plastic boxes, and I expect I'll be replacing it with something more like spotlights.

Landlords... I finally made the move to buy when my landlords refused to do anything about the basement of the little row house which flooded everytime there was a heavy rain -- house was charming if incredibly run down but the floods were a problem. This was part of a pattern of cheapness that amounted to irresponsibility. I called the city on them. The inspector found multiple violations, and we did not part on good terms. (They couldn't rent it out again because the city wouldn't let them until they repaired the problems, and finally sold it, but since they'd owned a mid-19th century house in a historic district for 20 years they made a mint, so no boohoos)

I'm not sure what the moral is except that I should have moved long before and I'm loving my mid-60s apartment and really enjoying redoing it in tiny steps.

You can get the whole shebang at IKEA for just $210:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15553&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=53077&langId=-1&categoryId=15609&chosenPartNumber=S99824890

I know there was a really attractive one in plain wood a while back that was even cheaper, but I can't seem to find it today.

Becky

Gotta echo the comment about replacing the whole thing. It would be difficult to remove the cabinet from under the vanity, and get a new one in there, without taking off the vanity top, so you'll have to disconnect the plumbing anyway. And if you're replacing the cabinet, it's not much more to replace the top and faucet too (and it'll look much better). Your sink looks like a 24" wide one. The Vattern comes in 23.5" wide, so it should fit nicely. (The Vattern is a little shallower than your existing sink/cabinet, I think, and is usually used with legs rather than a plinth, so this could pose a problem if the floor is really cruddy underneath where the existing cabinet is -- e.g., tiles missing.) Because it's shallower (16.125" instead of your 19" or 20"), if you use the Vattern, the drain will be farther back (closer to the wall) but looks like it has plenty of room to adjust. Your pics don't show the connection to the faucet, but you've got flexible copper that looks like it's actually soldered onto plain 1/2" copper supply lines coming out of the floor. I don't see any shutoffs, but there ought to be some (perhaps hidden under the cabinet?). If there's no shut-off for those supply lines in your apartment, replacing the faucet will be trickier. Most any one-hole faucet will work with the Vattern, so you needn't go for the Ikea version (although it's reasonably cheap). Reconnecting the supply ought to be pretty straightforward.
If you don't like the Ikea sinks, the big box stores sell a few reasonably nice-looking sets of sink/cabinet combos in the $150 range. They're not the strudiest/nicest, but they'll like a lot nicer than what you've got for at least the next couple of years. The bottom line is that you can get a new cabinet, sink, and faucet, plus whatever plumbing fittings you need, for under $250. If you're handy, you can porbably do it yourself. A handyman ought to be able to do this in a couple hours, maybe less.

agree with everybody..craiglist is the best place to find a vanity and diy or get a handyman to install it..good luck

Yikes. That is BAD. Even if the LL won't actually pay you'd benefit from the replacement so it would be worth it! I'd find it hard to imagine your landlord NOT letting you improve the bathroom - and if you really don't think they will let you I'd go with the accidental breakage of said hideousness that causes tham to replace. Otherwise, replacing a vanity and sink is EASY! Really. Just turn the water off at the sink - if you can do that then you can do this. Just rip that stuff out and ANYTHING you do will be better. I think you could actually do this for less tha $150, definitely less than $250.