Well, I have a 40" vanity doddering on two tapered legs (very chunky though to match my bedroom furniture), two because my very helpful hubby told the carpenter we didn't need four! I guess he's not terribly wrong, as I'm sure it would be impossible to see the two back legs anyways...

I just looked at my dressers and had him make legs to match. My dressers do have a two inch deep and wide solid piece going from top to bottom, ie that decorative piece on all four corners continues down to become the leg. I didn't want to waste that space in my vanity, so I just have the stumps/legs on the bottom. But my vanity is a very simply designed teak with three slab drawers, no detailing/molding, etc.

Personally, I think it is one of those elements that you could over-think, ie. you could make it very decorative, and please yourself, but I don't think anyone else would notice or care. The vanity it replaced just had two narrow tapered wooden legs with metal tips screwed in there. I had never really noticed them until it came time to demolish!

Whatever you end up deciding, do make sure you have a place to screw the legs into...

Thanks so much raehelen. Your post was VERY helpful. I laughed about making sure there's a place to screw in the legs because that sounds like something that would happen to me!

Your post made me think that perhaps I need a custom cabinetmaker. What I really want doesn't exist in off the shelf vanities. That would be a 48" vanity with 24" drawers on the left side and a 24" sink base with full height doors on the right. Pottery Barn actually has this asymmetrical type cabinet but it's only 42" wide which is too small for my bathroom.

I can find this combination at any cabinet manufacturer but would have to buy two separate cabinets and join them together. The drawback is that you would be able to see the seam where the two cabinets are joined. I think a custom guy would be able to eliminate that problem.

I am definitely an advocate of custom cabinet makers. We used them for both of our BR renos. I had a 48" one with two banks of 12" drawers, and full height doors. I had a pull-out drawer made for under the sink cupboard and absolutely love it! No more laying on floor trying to reach the far back corner!
However, you won't see a seam, just think of your kitchen cupboards, they're all made of individual cabinets...no seams. Our custom one in the basement is basically three cabinets that the carpenter joined together. So, if you can find what you want I don't think you need to worry about having separate cabinets.

You will be able to store a lot of stuff in 24" drawers! More than I can in 2 sets of 12" drawers, though even that is a huge improvement over no drawers!

We had a local cabinet maker build our vanity. He designed the legs as part of the cabinet and set a toe kick several inches back giving us the cabinet look we wanted without the "dust collection" underneath. Though ours is larger than you need, the concept is the same.

We found the cost for locally built favorable to stock vanities and were able to include features to better utilize the space. The first few photos within the linked album hopefully will provide information to assist.

Here is a link that might be useful: Master Bath

That vanity is beautiful fnm. I like it because it has really good proportions and lots of storage space. Very nice details too. And the wood just glows. I guess I was avoiding custom out of laziness. I figured ordering a vanity from a cabinet company would just be easier. Sigh.