Medicine Cabinet - Before
While I love my vintage bathroom with it’s subway tile and black and white tile and fixtures, the medicine cabinet had been bugging me. While the rest of the bathroom is old but has charm, the plain mirrored front of the medicine cabinet was just shabby minus the chic. So with no real plan, I took the door off and began to sand.
As I began sanding, ideas began to form. I knew that from a straight maintenance perspective, I needed to at least paint the inside shelves. The previous owner, just prior to selling, decided to give all the doors and trim, a fresh coat of while paint, including this medicine cabinet. It would have been great, except they painted with (cheap) latex paint over oil so we have a lot of peeling paint to deal with all over the house.
Bathroom - After
I decide that I needed a way to dress up the mirror and hide the edges, so I bought a strip of moulding and had my favorite handy man cut it for me using a mitre saw. (Thanks Dad!) If you don’t have access to a handy man, store like Rona and Home Depot will make a couple of cuts for you for free.
From there, I glued the pieces of moulding together to form my frame using LePage No More Nails glue. The glue worked great and held my frame together without needing to be clamped, which would have been tricky. I did use a bit to much glue thinking that I could easily sand it off, and I found that this product does not sand well. Next time I would use (way) less glue and fill any gaps at the corners with a sandable wood filler.
Once I had my frame made, a quick spray with a little Rustoleum Gloss Black and I was ready to attach it to the mirror. To do this I once again used the No More Nails Glue and it worked great! I applied glue to the back side of the frame and pressed it to the mirror. I would have clamped it, but the clamps I had on hand were too small. Instead I put a towel over the mirror and frame and put a small bench upside down over top of it and piled a couple of heavy book on top to hold everything together while the glue dried overnight. It worked great and the glue is really strong.
While I was at it, I made a couple extra little upgrades. I had found 2 small shelves at a thrift store for $1.50 each so I picked them up. I painted them with the gloss black spray paint at the same time as my frame and installed them over the back of the toilet. And since I had the Medicine Cabinet door off, I decided to spray paint the back with chalkboard paint! It was so easy to do, and I love having a fun little space to leave reminders or loves notes.
So here is the cost breakdown
- Strip of Moulding – $10.00 (5 ea. I need 2)
- Black spray paint – $5.00
- Shelves – $3.00
- White Kitchen & Bath Paint $16.00
- Chalkboard paint $7.00
- Primer – Free
- Total cost- Around $40.00
I love difference my shelves and framed cabinet make to my little bathroom. It just dressed it up a bit and added a touch of drama to our small space. If I had know such a small change would make such a big difference, I would have done it ages ago!
This post was submitted to Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage and Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest.
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That looks so nice. I wish I saw this a few months ago. I had an ugly old medicine cabinet in one of our bathrooms. When we redid the bathroom I didn’t have any idea on how I could fix it up so I ended up just ripping it out :-O
Thanks! I would love to redo our bathroom, but it’s not in the cards at the moment. Looking at the edge of the mirror everyday just drove me nuts, so I had to figure out a way to put a little “lipstick” on our bathroom to dress it up a bit.
The surprise of the chalkboard was my favorite surprise! How fun!