The Vanity Unit Affordability Report: Wages vs Furniture Prices
Affordability in bathroom furniture is not settled by the price of the unit. It is settled by whether the unit fits the plumbing that already exists, and by how long the carcase survives a humid room. That is the conclusion of this report, and it is why the cheapest specification frequently produces the most expensive bathroom. We do not publish prices or wage ratios in our editorial work: the Office for National Statistics publishes earnings through the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, but no dataset pairs those earnings with bathroom furniture prices, and we will not construct one. What we set out instead is where cost actually accumulates: moving a waste connection, choosing wall hung over floor standing without checking the wall, buying a unit that needs a specific basin, and specifying unsealed board in a room with weak extraction. Each of those decisions costs more than the unit itself....
