Removing A Medicine Cabinet & Hanging A Bathroom Mirror

Our recent flurry of mirror-related projects means my repertoire of pun-riddled mirror references is growing thin. Our latest victim was the guest bathroom. We figured after swapping out the medicine cabinet in our master bath, that we might as well do the same in the guest bath. Especially since our guests will not exactly need a medicine cabinet. At least we hope not.

It was still functional, but had certainly seen better days (the interior metal cabinet was starting to rust- we think it was original to the house, which makes it nearly 50 years old) and we figured we could do better than the plain silver frame. So two screws later it was off the wall and after another two minutes (ok, perhaps I am exaggerating, let us say five) we were back in business:

It is clearly nothing elaborate, but at least it was free (it was an old Target mirror that we have had for a couple of years). And we figure once we get some paint on those walls (we are thinking some sort of muddy gray will hopefully add some sophistication with the yellow tile) the white frame will pop nicely off the wall and go hand in hand with other clean white objects like the trim, sink, toilet, etc.

We also took a moment to remove the large room-encroaching metal shelf & towel bar. You can see it gone in the photo below and scroll back up to see it in action above the john. We figure we will add two clean looking hooks to the inside of the bathroom door for guests to hang their towels, and the room might benefit from some crisp art on the wall, simply so it feels a bit less utilitarian. Oh and speaking of the inside of the bathroom door, we chose to remove the full length mirror that you see in the pic below. Not simply to free up space for those towel hooks that we mentioned…

… but also to remedy the uncomfortable placement. See, if our guests went in there to do their business, they’d get a view similar to this one. Minus the jeans. Awkward.

Removing it was a cinch. Since it was not glued to the door, I simply had to remove the single clip on the right side, and then carefully slide that baby out (it had two clips on the top and the bottom, and one on each side). Once it was off the door, I took out the rest of the clips. Here is the best one handed “in progress” shot that I got.

And here is the door as it stands now. We have still gotta putty over the screw holes left by all of the mirror clips and then hang our towel hooks but we feel fairly good that we have saved our guests from having to experience their quite own “John on john” moment. If they happen to be named John. Otherwise switch the first John out with their name (like how I overexplained that for you?).

Oh, and you likely remember that we have another one of these mirrors on the master bathroom door (on the outside, fortunately). We were thisclose to taking it off moments after finishing this project, but suddenly began second-guessed ourselves. We are now thinking that instead of removal, we might leave it be and someday upgrade it with a pleasant frame of molding around it so it looks built-in. We will see…