Well, that was easy, but not cheap

I started what I thought would be a long, arduous, and painful process of trying to find a pair of apron wall brackets to go with my new sink legs. As I mentioned yesterday, I bought a pair of 1890s sink legs on EBay for the new bathroom.

The legs support a marble apron at the outside corners of the vanity and there should be a pair of small brackets that mount to the wall to support the opposite end of the apron. These inevitably get tossed or left behind because people either don’t know what they are, or they just loose them. This is the same reason there are a zillion cabinet latches and rim locks out there without the catches. These parts may seem small and insignificant, but they are a crucial part of the item whether it be a cabinet latch, rim lock, or sink leg. It's like having an old car with no window cranks.

Anyway, I’ve been playing around with ideas about how I could mount the sink and apron without the little wall brackets. A few ideas came to mind but they mostly seemed like hack-jobs. Anybody that knows me, knows that I’m normally not opposed hack-jobs and work-arounds. Hell, “The King of Work-Arounds” could be my epitaph. In this case though, this sink will be very heavy when it’s in place. This is not hack-job territory. It should be secured properly to the wall. I don’t want to have a $1000 worth of antique plumbing crashing to the ground because I was too cheap to do it right.

Then last night I thought about the site I had found mentioned in a few of 1902 Victorians musings on dreamy Victorian bathrooms. There is a place in LA (I think) called Vintage Plumbing. This is the place that has the $7,600 marble vanity. I found their site and shot off an email last night shortly after 9:00 at night. About 10 minutes later I heard my laptop ding-a-ling at me indicating new mail had arrived. It was Don from Vintage Plumbing. This guy is hard-core if he’s answering obscure questions on antique plumbing at 9 o’clock at night on a Tuesday.

Sure enough he had what I was looking for, only they weren’t original antiques. Apparently I’m not the only person who has had this problem. I guess it’s so common, or at least common among lunatics who buy antique sink legs, that Don has his own made out of nickel plated cast brass.

The brackets are about 5-inches high and about an inch wide. At $135 for a pair I’m going to need a bullet to bite on when I write that check. Ouch!