Ideas from Ed: Once Upon A Pedestal (Vol. 9, Issue 9)
A few years ago, I “rigged” some plumbing valves and faucet to fit this old sink at my son’s house:
While it functioned adequately, it never has been quite right, mostly because the cold and hot knobs are just a hair undersized of the holes in the sink body, so a lot of caulk was needed to seal things. Since everything comes through the vertical back of the sink instead of through the top as is common, it was difficult to find parts that fit properly. This time around I was asked to replace the entire sink with a pedestal model.
Of course, the first step was to shut off the water supply and remove the old sink. As you can see in the photo above, there were two “arms” and two “feet”, attached to the wall and the floor respectively. They merely unbolted without any issue. A wall-mounted sink like this usually slips into place onto a strong metal bracket bolted to the wall, and this one was no exception. After lifting the sink up and forward, the wall bracket was exposed.
I removed the bracket with no problem simply by undoing the screws that were anchoring it to the wall.
I’m no expert on pedestal sinks but I have installed several over the years. They have been a bit of a challenge due to the limited space available to make the plumbing connections. Perhaps things have changed over the years, but this sink (and maybe all “new” ones) could not have been much easier. It needs to be set up in the proposed condition for a moment while “locating holes” through the back are marked on the wall. Then the sink is removed and two strong anchor bolts are set into the wall at those spots like in this picture:
I had to drill through wall tiles to set those anchors but had no real problem. I used a hammer drill and a masonry bit. This sink came with good anchor bolts, but obviously if you’re only attaching to drywall (and not to studs or some other strong surface) you should open the wall and install a backing board for structural strength.
With this method, the sink top can be slid onto the wall bolts, nutted down, all of the under-sink plumbing done, and then the pedestal simply slipped under it!
The instructions suggest caulking the pedestal to the floor, as well as the sink top to the pedestal. I did do the latter, but chose to caulk behind and inside of the pedestal base rather than make a visible line from the front. As long as the two units are attached well to each other, to the wall, and to the floor, this should be fine.
I hope all your projects go well. Thanks for reading, and happy restoring!
Ed
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