I am having medicine…

I am having medicine cabinet issues. Help. My plan was to take off the doors of an inexpensive metal medicine cabinet (as inexpensive as possible), and replace the doors with mirrors.

Is that feasible, do you think? I tried to Google a DIY for this, but completely failed. Does the fact that no one seems to have done this mean that it's a bad idea?

Kevin was suggesting that we hinge the mirror directly to the wall, rather than to the medicine cabinet -- does that make more sense? Is it going to be hard to drill hinges into the mirror without breaking it? Is there room to do that on the frame, and if I do, will it actually hold, or will the whole thing fall down? Do I need to add some kind of magnet on the other side, so it actually closes?

Is this all too crazy a plan, and I should just abandon it and buy a normal medicine cabinet like a normal person already?

This is the mirror I would ideally like to use, "Palace Window" by Khalid Ali, mango wood covered in nickled-brass:

If I do this, I'm also having trouble figuring out what size medicine cabinet would actually fit behind it, given the top and bottom. The frame is almost 30" tall; the mirror itself is 26" tall -- but how tall is the rectangular part? I wonder if calling Novica would help.

(While we're at it, would this be a nice medicine cabinet for the powder room? For there, I'm looking for period-looking silvery metal frame, nice over wallpaper. Hmm...is that actually silvery? Hard to tell -- I definitely don't want gold-tone. I also like this one.)

5 thoughts on “I am having medicine…”

  1. I like the idea of hinging the mirror directly to the wall. I have twice had a glass shop drill holes in mirrors for me. Not all glass shops will/can drill such holes, but once I found one that would, the result was great.

  2. I’m confused about what you mean by hinging the mirror to the wall rather than to the medicine cabinet. Would there also be a medicine cabinet (with a non-mirrored cover), next to the mirror? Would you embed the cabinet in the wall? If the mirror weren’t a cover, would it need to be hinged?

  3. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    The cabinet itself is recessed into the wall; the mirror takes the place of the mirrored cover it comes with.

  4. Makes sense, but in that scenario is there much difference between hinging the mirror to the wall and hinging it to the cabinet? I think I’m missing something about what you’re describing.

  5. If you could find ornate enough hinges, fastening it to the wall would be easy enough if there is a wood stud adjacent to the recessed medicine cabinet.
    Of course if the frame edge were sturdy enough one leaf of the hinges could be fastened to the back side of of it. The mirror looks fairly heavy so the anchorage to the wall should be directly to the stud. Medicine cabinets usually are sized to fit between studs at 16 inches on center, although there may be some to fit between 24 inch centered studs.
    You may need to visit the cabinet shop that is making your kitchen group. They could advise you on hinge types and perhaps help reinforce the frame for hinging sideways.

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