A single sink vanity does something a double cannot. It leaves wall.
That open run beside the cabinet is where a mid-century bathroom breathes. The style was never about filling a room, it was about leaving enough air around a well-made object that you actually see it, and the same restraint runs through every piece of mid century modern design worth owning. A 36 inch MCM vanity on tapered legs with the floor visible underneath reads as furniture. Push a 72 inch double into the same footprint and you have a countertop.
Most single sink vanities get sold on storage. Buy this one on surface, then let it set the tone for the rest of the room the way the other mid-century modern bathroom furniture here is meant to, through one repeated wood tone rather than four coordinating ones.
What a single sink vanity buys you that a double cannot
Counter. Not storage, counter. Two basins in a 60 inch cabinet leave roughly eight usable inches on each side and a dead strip in the middle nobody can reach. A mid century modern bathroom vanity with a single sink in that same 60 inches gives you a full arm's length of clear surface, and that is where the tray, the stone bowl, the stack of folded towels go.
The trade is real. One sink means one person at a time. If two of you are out the door at 7:15, the second basin earns its width. Everywhere else it costs you the thing you actually use.
Sizing a mid century modern single bathroom vanity
The 24 and 30 inch MCM vanity in a small bathroom
Powder rooms and tight guest baths. At this width the cabinet is a piece of joinery rather than storage, so the wood and the leg do all the work. Keep the faucet low profile, because a tall spout on a 24 inch top throws the proportion off immediately.
The 36 inch mid century modern bathroom vanity
This is the width most mid-century designs were drawn for, and the one people look for most. Enough drawer to hold a household, narrow enough that the floor still shows on both sides. Caught between two sizes, 36 is the safer miss.
42, 48 and 60 inch single sink layouts
An underrated move is a 60 inch mid century modern bathroom vanity with one offset sink: the drawer bank of a double, the counter of a small one. It photographs badly and lives beautifully.
Walnut, white oak or acacia on a mid century bath vanity
A mid century modern walnut bathroom vanity goes red under warm bulbs and reads almost purple against cool tile. White oak stays honest in both. Acacia moves the most, which is either the reason to buy it or the reason not to. Look at the sample at seven in the evening with the lamp on, not at noon.
Warm wood against a cool tile floor
Wood over grey tile is the most common mid-century bathroom and the hardest to get right. The wood has to be the warmest thing in the room by a clear margin, or it reads as a mismatch rather than a contrast.
The mistake people make buying a mid century modern vanity with sink
They buy the era and forget the plumbing. Plenty of period-correct designs put a full drawer bank exactly where the P-trap wants to be, and the factory solves it with a false front or a notched box you lose half of. Read the drawer count against the sink position before you order. On a centered single sink, the middle drawer is usually the casualty.
Floating or freestanding mid century modern single vanities
A mid century modern floating bathroom vanity gives you visible floor, which is the cheapest way there is to make a small bathroom feel larger, and it asks for real blocking in the wall. Tapered legs do nearly the same thing with an easier install. A plinth base gives you neither and should be chosen on looks alone, with your eyes open.
The one that lasts still looks deliberate in ten years, once the tile has dated and the fixtures have not. Wood, proportion, and a little empty wall tend to survive that.