Bathroom vanity cabinets should last for years. However, your toilet bowl and the men in your family can wreak havoc on your vanities. Here's how:

• Wood rot from a toilet bowl that is constantly overflowing, and
• Urine that splashes on the sides of your vanity.

Urine is pretty acidic and will discolor and damage your vanity over time. This is especially noticeable with white bathroom vanities that you may have bought at Lowes, the Home Depot and other hiome improvement stores. The urine turns the side yellow and over time will permanently discolor it.

You can take care of a constantly overflowing toilet by not overloading it with toilet paper, toys, etc. If you are in the market for a new toilet, see our article on selecting a good toilet.

Men of all ages are the perpetrators of urine on the side of vanity cabinets. How come? Because we stand when we have to urinate. It's written into our DNA, and despite US government efforts to isolate the chromosome for this anomaly and find a treatment, scientists believe we are years a way from finding a remedy.

The urine quite simply either directly hits the vanity (common in younger boys) or splashes from the toilet bowl on to the vanity. The other part of men's DNA is an aversion to cleaning up after ourselves. That said, we are ready to move on to a solution.

Plexiglass to the Rescue
Clear Plexiglass s can be used to protect the sides of your vanities. It can be found at most hardware stores or at Lowes Home Improvement or Home Depot Stores and is relatively inexpensive. Here's what you need to do before you purchase the Plexiglass:

1. Measure the side of each vanity that is exposed to a toilet bowl in your house,
2. Take some 2 feet x 3 feet poster paper or cardboard and trace out with a pencil the measurements you just took,
3. Take a scissors or a cutting blade and cut the areas that you just traced and you'll have a template, and
4. Take the template to any hardware store, Lowes or Home Depot and ask them to cut it out for you.

Once the Plexiglass s is cut, you'll have several choices for how you want to attach it against the side of the vanity cabinet. You can attach it with about 4 very small screws, use clear Velcro, or just stand it next to the vanity in its most upright position.

If you can't get someone to cut the Plexiglass s for you, buy a sheet of Plexiglass s that is smaller than the size of the vanity and just place it over the side of the vanity cabinet. If its not noticeable it will still do the job.

One more thing. You can use Plexiglass on the other side of the toilet or in back of it if you have a mind to protect those areas too.

When you do your household cleaning, just apply your cleaner to the Plexiglass s and you'll remove the discoloration and ensure that your vanity stays as new as the day you installed it.

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