Mental Juggling, Medicine Cabinets and Dominoes

The classic riddle of the remodeling-sphinx: How can something seemingly as simple as a medicine cabinet possibly consumer so much of one's time?


Of the 250 decisions (that might be generous on the low side... let's call these 'product decisions') that must be made for the bathroom alone, I am currently spinning my wheels on the medicine cabinet. Should be fun and quick, right? Well, it was.... the first time. Maybe even the second time. I had the the size was just right, the price well shopped and down to the SKU - ready to purchase when it was closer to install time (no need to have additional stuff laying around up there...)

So there we go last weekend to pick up the medicine cabinet (we need it now not to install, but so extra blocking can be done prior to the sheet rock being installed). Just before heading out the door - thinking I'm being cautious... i decide to pop upstairs and measure in between the studs... just in case. Whew, I think: one was 14.5 and the other 14.25. The difference of a quarter inch could have really thrown me off here. but the dimensions of the in-the-wall part is 14'' in width so all clear. WOOHOO! ---wait for it--- Hmmm.... that PVC pipe is running straight up the middle of the studs where the cabinet is to be. yep. Murphy strikes again.


After all my pondering of size, shape and style - then shopping pricing and picking out the PERFECT medicine cabinet... it's no good. it would have looked lovely over one sink and protruded from the wall over the other. Back to square one. But actually, the domino effect kicks in, because we needed to finalize what type of lighting would go over the sinks before the electrician could finish the rough in... so we bought the lights already. Well, those were selected on the premise that of the inset medicine cabinet would be fairly flush to the wall.


Given this new discovery that I need to pick out a new medicine cabinet that will be wall-mounted, not recessed, it will not protrude further from the wall than originally thought. Meaning the lights won't be ideal any more, they either need to come out further from the wall or be side mounted... but we've already passed electrical inspection, so i don't want to redo any electrical wiring and have that set-back.... so stuck with finding a new light fixture with the parameters we already set for the last lights, not to mention staying within the metal finish selected when we got the clawfoot tub feet & hardware (faucet, etc) and minding the available selections for the time period of the original construction of the house.


By and by, I have since realized that I need to consider/select the sink size and placement to determine where the exactly the blocking* will need to be, once the cabinet (and corresponding dimensions) have been determined.


While this might seem an easy task... it turns out not to be. And I'm still on the medicine cabinet part. And now it's not time for casually thinking it over and refining my selections over time.... chop chop, sister! this will now hold up progress and the guy is coming to finish up minor framing changes early next week.


So, need to go ahead and get the sinks. Thankfully, my sink selection will still work, but I will need to go to two different places to get them because everyone, it seems, is running low on stock of that item.


But picking up the sink won't really help all that much, other than crossing it off the list because I will have to just visualize the combo since we are.......... still in studs.


*in case you aren't familiar, blocking is securing a 2x4 between to vertical studs to carry weight of a heavy item on a wall: e.g. medicine cabinet, TV or recessed shelf. done correctly, it should be connected at the center of the new 2x4.


also: did I mention that we failed our mechanical inspection? well, we failed our mechanical inspection. not because of something with the new system... and not because of something functionally wrong with existing system... but because the vent pipe is too long in one direction and they want it to go straight up. Yep. A minor ~$600 'fix' for something not even involved in our current renovation. and the best part: the vent pipe will pop through the roof on the front part of the house.