Replacing medicine cabinet

[Rocinante]

Where can I find a decent tri-mirror cabinet? Home Depot doesn't have any that fit. I have a recessed area of 30" width and 31" length (measured stud to stud).

Thanks!

[borgunit]

Try other home supply stores.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I just fired my 40 year old ugly medicine cabinet. It's got two weeks to leave. A quick measurement: Approx 16" wide, outside dimension, and 13" wide inside the cabinet. That first dimension suggests life will be easy - a "standard" replacement might fit inside the existing beams. I shouldn't have to jack up the house, or hire a wrecking crane, bulldozer or construction helicopter.

What are the odds against things working out this easily? I don't mind doing a little plaster patching around the edges. I'm talking about unknowns that are like something out of the movie "Predator". As in "Hey look - this medicine cabinet originally supported the entire......" CRASH!

[Nick Hull]

You don't have to fit the cabinet between the studs, I have a much larger one with a tri-fold mirror that mounts on top of the finished wall and my wife is VERY happy with it.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I'll check that idea when I start shopping tonight. It might actually save some work on another issue. On either side of the medicine cabinet, there are these stupid Hollywood makeup lights - the kind with the bare bulbs, 4 on each side. Everyone hates them. I'm thinking of moving one of them above the medicine cabinet, and building something out of wood to hold a piece of frosted glass to diffuse the light. Then, for the electrical boxes I'm left with, have a slim, vertical mirror made to cover each side. But, if I can find a medicine cabinet wide enough to cover those boxes....

[Goedjn]

If anyone uses that mirror for grooming, having only overhead light makes it really hard to see your neck. Not an issue if you shave with an electric, but...

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I know what you mean, but the voters here say "No lights directly in front of our eyes". So, I'm going to keep one of the mongo light strips (400 watts worth of bulbs), move them up, diffuse them, and paint the ceiling pure white. Should be plenty of diffused light. The way they are now, it's like looking into headlights - the pupils contract and we're blinded to under-the-neck details.

[DerbyDad03]

When we redid our bathroom, instead of replacing the in-the-wall medicine cabinet with another one, we did this:

1- I hung a surface mount medicine cabinet on a side wall next to the sink. 2 -In the "hole" where the old medicine cabinet was, I recessed a mirror and then trimmed the hole to create a niche. Nothing fancy, just some luan for the side walls and some edge molding. I used caulk to fill all the seams and painted it so it looks like a single unit. I bullnosed some 1/2 poplar for the bottom shelf and cut it about an inch "deeper" then the hole so it extends into the bathroom. My wife puts her little bottles of stuff on the shelf.

Something like this, but with a mirror on the back wall: