Planning on remodeling, repairing or building your own vintage or midcentury style bathroom? Then you’ll likely need at least one sink for your space. While we love the rainbow of colors and many shapes and sizes of vintage sinks, sometimes finding the right one for your bathroom can be a challenge. To help make sink selection easier for you, we’ve compiled a list of our five favorite sink styles — each with specific sink models you can order new today — that would work wonderfully in vintage and midcentury style bathrooms.
1. Sinks with hudee rings
The Kohler Tahoe is our #1 choice for a midcentury-style, hudee-ring bathroom sink. We love that it is cast iron like the vintage originals. This guy has likely been in continuous production for … 50 or 60 years. We need to ask Kohler!
Ceco Sinks also offers porcelain-enamel-on-cast iron sinks with hudee rings — in both oval and rectangular shapes. To get the hudee ring, you need to go with the 8″ spread. The sinks used to be available in 50 different colors, but as of today only six colors are offered: White, Biscuit, almond, bone, black and platinum.
Bootz Industries offers two porcelain-enamel-on-steel hudee ring bathroom sinks in round and oval that also are a great choice for midcentury bathrooms. Kate used one in her mint green bathroom refresh. These sinks are less expensive than their cast iron cousins.
2. Wall-mount sinks on metal legs
Wall-hung sinks on chrome legs, with or without integral towel bars, were ubiquitous in midcentury bathrooms. To get this look “new” today. Pam is pritty darned sure that you can install one of these commercial wall-mount sinks designs from American Standard, Kohler, and a few other companies (affiliate link) as intended — that is, on a wall, using the brackets provided… then, add chrome legs. (We’re banking on the hope that there are holes on the bottom side of these sinks where you can screw the legs in. Peerless Pottery also has sinks like this — including in pastel colors!!! — and check out Gerber, too.
Where to find chrome or other metal legs for wall-hung sinks: Check deabath.com for their variety of metal lavatory legs, priced beginning at $55/pair. You might also find legs vintage… at your local hardware store… or even find sink legs on Amazon (affiliate link).
Altogether, it looks like you put together a combo like this — wall-mount sink + legs — for as little as $100, not including labor. Or, you could save even more money if you found a sink vintage — Pam’s ReStore is usually chock-a-block with such sinks.
If you want to go more upscale, the Alden Sink from Waterworks, available in two styles, is a favorite because of its metal legs with integral towel bars — spendy but pretty and very appropriate for a vintage or midcentury style bathroom. There’s a matching toilet, too.
Note: The links to the Alden sinks on Waterworks website that we share are for the legs only. The listings mentioned that the tops are sold separately but we didn’t see them on the website, so we called to inquire and the representative told us that though the tops are not listed on the website, they are available. Below is their size and price information:
- The Alden rectangular top 28 x 22 x 8.75 is item #11-56947-33393 $371.00
- The Alden rectangular with backsplash 26 x 20 x1 4.75 is item #11-25880-66006 $ 422.00
If you want to dial back the clock a bit, you could choose this “Belle Epoque” sink from Renovator’s Supply (affiliate link), also adding legs — although with a fluttery design like this, we’d go with “fancy” legs, rather than simple ones. We’re thinking… very early 20th century for this look. But what a practical sink — what with all the space for stuff.
Another possibility for this look: Get one of these sinks on porcelain legs from Strom Plumbing/Sign of the Crab, then ditch the porcelain legs for metal legs. However: I am making a guess that this is possible — talk to the company first to make sure it would work including that the metal legs would support the sink safely. 
Several of these sinks have a simpler basin design — better for a midcentury home than sinks with lots of decorative flourish.
Strom Plumbing/Sign of the Crab also makes the Mississippi bathroom faucets that Pam used in her bathrooms (affiliate link) — and which she continues to adore.
And if you want to go a little more retro-modern, Duravit is a favorite go-to. Above, the already-a-classic Duravit Happy D sink. This one is about as far as we’d go into the Duravit line though — other sinks, while nice, read too contemporary for our taste.
3. Sinks in pastel colors
Peerless pottery is currently the only place we know of where you can get porcelain sinks in retro colors such as: Venetian Pink, Dresden Blue and Harvest Gold. According to our last communication with Peerless Pottery, the sink models above should be able to be ordered in these colors, however a tip from reader Amy led us to Bath1 where some of the models above seem to be available to order online. Note: For “true” midcentury styles, we prefer a hudee-rimmed sink, or a wall-mount sink on chrome legs.
If you want color and are willing to “settle” for a drop-in sink, Thermocast currently offers 17 styles of acrylic bathroom sinks in 29 colors including pinks and aquas.
5. Pedestal sinks
If you have a pre-war bathroom, a pedestal sink may be more historically accurate. We’ve written about the Duravit 1930s collection before, and their pedestal sink is one of our favorites for a vintage bathroom because of its octagonal shape and complete series of sinks and toilets for a matchy-matchy bathroom.
We love this Liberty reproduction sink by St. Thomas Creations for a pre-war bathroom — it’s the classic for the period. You can also get this from deabath.com.
Parenthetically, because we wanted to show you how this sink looked in place: Jane found this St. Thomas-like sink for her mother’s newly created bathroom new at Signature Hardware — but it’s no longer shown as available.
This Kacy pedestal from Signature Hardware has a bit more going one, but it has the deco look, too. P.S. We want to know the paint color — gorgeous!
And for a few more sinks in this vein, look at St. Thomas Creations … and Toto’s Promenade is nice looking, too.
More research on bathroom sinks:
Still want to see more bathroom sinks? Visit our archive of sinks and vanities — new and vintage.
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When shopping for a sink for my yet to be refinished bathroom, I came across this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/American-Standard-Retrospect-Console-Table-Legs-in-Polished-Chrome-8711-000-002/100077256
The sink top was much cheaper at Lowes, and works with either the pedestal or these legs.
It will be perfect in my small 1926 bathroom – with useful storage too, can’t wait until we install it.
Yes, I think that sink is cute for a 1920s or so era bathroom!
The American Standard Retrospect sink on the chrome base was a perfect match for my 1958 black and white hall bathroom. Because of the glass shelf underneath it, I didn’t lose much storage space and the deck size is generous enough all bathroom needs. The sink itself was purchased at Lowe’s; the base and faucet were both chosen and bought online. My brother is thinking of using the same sink for his 1954 bathroom.
Retro renovation is becoming a vast resource for those of us giving our homes the details we love. Our escape from the big box store house flippers.
Thank you for that nice compliment!
Such a great resource. We have a 1950s ranch with a bathroom that needs a redo. Feeling much more optimistic we can do it with style!
I used the Retro Renovation website extensively for the 3 years that it took me to make the decisions for the renovation of my bathroom that was done in November 2015.
The sink I selected is the Kohler Greenwich, a wall-mounted style. http://www.us.kohler.com/us/Greenwich-20-3-4-x-18-1-4-wall-mount-concealed-arm-carrier-bathroom-sink-with-4-centerset-faucet-holes/productDetail/sinks/417330.htm?skuId=342131&brandId=432258 The sink has holes on the underside, but I don’t know if metal legs will work. I chose not to use legs because of a space issue.
It looks great with my 1950s Briggs Beautyware sky blue bathtub (original to the house) and 1985 Gerber blue toilet.
I don’t know if I will ever make enough money to think of a $5000 faucet as worth the price!
And don’t forget to call old family-run plumbing supply places to inquire about new old stock sinks they may have sitting in their back rooms or warehouses.
I love my pink (1980s) and green (1970s) NOS porcelain sinks in my two bathrooms. After several years, I still enjoy cleaning them and seeing how they shine!
Speaking of pink sinks, I just returned from a visit to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there seem to be a number of houses with pink bathrooms and kitchens. This one is for sale:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Albuquerque-NM-87104/fsba,fsbo_lt/house_type/6701938_zpid/95299_rid/2-_baths/200000-250000_price/706-883_mp/35.13844,-106.58927,35.067518,-106.756812_rect/12_zm/0_mmm/
I used American Standard Town Square pedestal sink and toilet in my cottage renovation. Has a 1930s feel. I also used Strom’s Mississippi faucet set.https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=american+standard+town+square&view=detailv2&qpvt=american+standard+town+square&id=B1AAF713CC493DC47FC3750B8D22560A30C3A17F&selectedIndex=2&ccid=x0Isf6QL&simid=608027770876660679&thid=OIP.Mc7422c7fa40b920bf668ab4eb68c1ee6o0&ajaxhist=0
Do you have an opinion on American Standard’s Retrospect console sink? I have a 1950 gray tile with darker gray trim tile in the original bathroom. Unfortunately the toilet and sink were replaced with a horrible modern pedestal sink and toilet. I am trying to find affordable replacements for them. I know it is not exactly period, but the Retrospect has metal legs and is affordable.I thought it was a better choice than a pedestal or a modern vanity. Also Kohler Memoirs collection has a console sink with metal legs but it feels a tad modern. Which do you think is better? or none of them?