Malm Six-Drawer Chest Turned into a Bathroom Vanity with a Odensvik Basin Cut

The Malm carcass is 22 mm particleboard with a foil wrap, not solid timber, and that single material fact governs every decision downstream. Foil-wrapped board wicks water at any exposed edge within weeks, so the drilled basin aperture and the trap notch are the two failure points that need sealing before assembly, not after. The Odensvik basin ships in 40, 60, 80, and 100 cm widths; the 60 cm unit centres cleanly on the 80 cm six-drawer version and leaves the outer drawer stacks fully functional.

Measure the basin drop-in footprint against the top panel before touching a saw. The Odensvik ceramic sits in a recessed lip, and the cutout must clear the drain body and the two mounting brackets. A 60 cm basin needs an aperture of roughly 54 by 34 cm, but the exact figure comes off the paper template packed with the basin, traced onto the Malm top with the panel still flat on trestles.

The cut that cannot be undone

Particleboard chips catastrophically on the exit face of any blade, and the Malm foil lifts in sheets if the cut runs against the grain of the wrap. A jigsaw with a downward-cutting blade (Bosch T101BR or equivalent reverse-tooth) pulls chips toward the underside instead of tearing the visible top surface. Score the traced line first with a utility knife pressed through the foil, two passes, before the blade enters. That scored channel gives the foil a clean edge to break along instead of splintering three centimetres wide.

Drill a 10 mm entry hole inside the waste area at each corner, then run the jigsaw corner to corner rather than trying to pivot in place. Corner pivots on 22 mm board bind the blade and burn the foil. Once the waste piece drops out, the raw particleboard edge sits exposed all the way around the aperture. This edge, untreated, is the single most common reason these builds swell and delaminate within a year. Two coats of a solvent-free epoxy edge sealer, or failing that a clear polyurethane thinned 10 percent for the first coat, soak into the open board and lock the fibres before any water reaches them.

The trap notch in the top rear drawer front is the second cut. The Odensvik P-trap and the drain tailpiece descend roughly 18 to 22 cm below the basin, which passes straight through the space the top drawer would occupy. Remove that drawer entirely and cut a 12 by 10 cm relief in the drawer front so it reattaches as a false front, screwed to the carcass, hiding the plumbing while keeping the facade continuous. The drawers below it lose no depth and stay on their runners.

Why the Besta frame is the harder starting point

A Besta frame vanity build reads as the obvious alternative, since the 60 by 42 cm Besta unit already offers an open interior for plumbing. In practice the Besta carcass is thinner-walled and its push-open hinges corrode in bathroom humidity faster than the Malm drawer runners, which are steel ball-bearing slides on the newer stock. The Malm gives more usable drawer volume for toiletries at the same footprint, and its solid top panel accepts the basin load without the mid-span sag a Besta shelf shows under a filled ceramic basin.

Sealing the drawer cavity against splash

Water that clears the basin edge runs down the carcass interior, and the foil-wrapped floor of a Malm drawer box holds standing droplets long enough to lift the wrap at the joints. Line the top drawer opening and the exposed carcass floor beneath the basin with a peel-and-stick bathroom membrane, the same butyl-backed sheet sold for shower-tray upstands. Fenix laminate refacing offers a more durable answer for anyone willing to spend the extra: the nanotech matte surface resists the fingerprint smearing and micro-scratching that plain Malm foil shows within months around a sink, and it wipes down without the streaking the original finish leaves.

Run a continuous bead of neutral-cure silicone (not acetoxy, which corrodes the chrome drain) around the full basin lip where the ceramic meets the sealed top. Tool it with a wetted finger in one pass; a lifted or gapped silicone line is where the slow leak starts. The Odensvik drain assembly torques onto a rubber gasket from below, and overtightening cracks the ceramic at the drain seat, so hand-tight plus a quarter turn on the locknut is the ceiling.

Wall mounting matters more here than for a factory vanity. A filled 60 cm basin plus the Malm carcass loaded with contents concentrates weight forward, and the chest wants to tip when the lower drawers extend. Two L-brackets from the rear carcass panel into wall studs, or a top rail screwed into masonry with 8 mm frame fixings, removes the tip risk entirely.

A worked cost and time breakdown

The arithmetic decides whether this is worth the destructive cut. The Malm 80 cm six-drawer chest runs about 179 EUR. The Odensvik 60 cm basin with the mixer tap and drain assembly runs roughly 90 to 130 EUR depending on which Ikea tap you pair with it. Edge sealer, silicone, the reverse-tooth jigsaw blade, the butyl membrane, and frame fixings add 40 to 60 EUR. Total materials land between 310 and 370 EUR.

An equivalent 80 cm bathroom vanity with a ceramic basin from a mainstream bathroom retailer sits at 550 to 950 EUR before installation, and the mid-range units use the same 22 mm foil-wrapped board the Malm does. The saving is real, in the 200 to 500 EUR band, but it is bought with roughly four hours of labour and the acceptance that a mistraced aperture ruins a 179 EUR panel with no second attempt on that piece.

Time splits roughly as follows: 45 minutes tracing and scoring, 30 minutes cutting and sealing edges, an hour for the membrane lining and Fenix refacing if chosen, 40 minutes for the basin drop-in and silicone, and an hour for tap and trap plumbing plus wall fixing. The sealer needs overnight cure before the basin seats, so this is a two-session build regardless of how fast the cutting goes.

Where the Malm foil finish gives out

The original Malm surface was never specified for a wet room, and the manufacturer rates it for bedroom use. Around a basin it holds up on the drawer fronts, which stay largely dry, but the horizontal top panel beside the basin takes standing water every time hands are washed. That zone is where refacing earns its cost, and where an unsealed build shows edge swell first.

The open question the arithmetic leaves is durability past the two-year mark. A factory vanity carries a warranty against exactly the delamination this build risks; the converted Malm carries none, and whether the epoxy-sealed aperture and membrane lining actually match a factory seal over five years of daily splash is something no short build log can answer.