Rx: A Medicine Cabinet That Reflects Good Taste
Mother's bathroom cabinet design offers convenience with aesthetic enjoyment, including dimensions, advice, photographs, instructions, diagram.
Full-length continuous hinges are attractive and support
the door frames evenly; they're fastened to the inner
stiles. Cutting 1/2" X 1/2" rabbets into the door frames
creates enough recess to accommodate the mirror glass, the
backing, and the retaining strips.
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Through mortise and tenon joints at thedoor
corners are easy to make and offer a pleasing contrast
between side and end grain. The joints are pinned with
short wire brads. Magnetic catches are used because they're
in expensive and self-aligning.
Whether you rent or own your home, you probably have a
particular something in common with the rest of us: an ugly
medicine cabinet. In fact, if you were to run a survey of
new construction, you might become convinced that there's
no reasonably priced alternative to the stamped-steel,
refrigerator-white box.
Enter MOTHER's woodworkers. Our contribution to the war
against "hospital decor" is made from oak and has enough
storage space to cache a lifetime supply of pills, blades,
and toiletries. The two outer mirrors hinge on the inside,
so they can be swung inward for proper primping.
And—unlike some three-mirror models we've
seen—the center door is also hinged to allow access
to the compartment behind.
WHY THESE DIMENSIONS?
Though we chose to mount our medicine cabinet on the
surface of the wall, the 44" width makes it comparatively
easy to recess the unit into a conventional 2 X 4 stud
wall. One or two studs must be cut, and headers have to be
installed above and below the cabinet. (To meet your local
code, you may need to double-frame the jambs and headers in
load-bearing walls.) Then the gap on each side of the
cabinet will allow shimming to correct for out-of-plumb
studs. (If you don't get the cabinet plumb, the doors will
swing open to remind you.) Although the 3-7/8" stock width
on the cabinet frame may seem a little odd at first, it
will allow the main frame to recess into a standard 3-1/2"
wall with 3/8" drywall so that the rear of the cabinet is
flush with the adjoining wall. However, if you are
recessing the cabinet into a wall with a thicker drywall or
into a plumbing wall (which has thicker studs), you'll want
to back the cabinet with 1/8" lauan or Masonite, instead of
installing the cleat shown in the illustration. (Otherwise,
your Contact may be swallowed up by your stud wall.)
A COUPLE OF TIPS
There are several possible approaches to cutting the joints
for the cabinet, but a table saw with an adjustable dado
really makes the work go quickly. You'd set the dado for a
3/4" width to cut the frame grooves, 5/8" for the shelf
track grooves, and 1/2" for the mirror .recesses and the
mortises and tenons at the door corners. Don't let the door
joints intimidate you; they're much easier to make than
they seem to be at first glance. One hint, though: If you
use softwood, make the ripped mirror recesses after doing
the crosscutting, because there's a greater likelihood of
tearout when crosscutting.
