The light in our main bathroom drove me a little bit crazy. You’d flick the switch and the light flicked on and off and on and off like a weak strobe light until finally lighting up. It also made a noise like a pinball machine with every flicker.
Finally, I said enough! Hubby replaced the fixture with something much nicer and less annoying but that revealed an issue. The medicine cabinet wasn’t centred compared to the light. It looked wonky. I never liked that cabinet anyway because its molded plastic shelves weren’t flat and it pitched out anything I tried to put into it, even with a rubbery shelf liner. But it was never top priority to make hubby go to the trouble of replacing it. Until now!
I didn’t want to buy a big fancy cabinet that was decorated with someone else’s design so we got a plain one and hubby installed it, centred. Then my task was to make it pretty. I tried framing it with mirror frames but they were either so wide the door wouldn’t open all the way or they just wouldn’t attach properly. On an unrelated note, does anybody need some unused 10 x 16 frames?
Then it hit me. The old cabinet had been gussied up with a framed mirror. What if I took that frame off and reused it? So that’s what I did. I painted it the same colour as the cabinets (Benjamin Moore’s Mink) and had to paint some of the wall in the same colour to fill in the space between the outside of the cabinet and the inside of the frame. So it has depth and interest, it’s one-of-a-kind and as hubby says, it’s also an optical illusion. It makes the cabinet look a lot more luxurious than it really is. As a bonus, it covers up where the wall got banged up in the cabinet switch.
There was a lot of measuring involved. Not just the unusual size ratio of frame to cabinet but also the placement of the hangers behind the frame and such. So I used Measure It measuring tape. It’s actual tape that won’t stretch but it’s pliable so you can stick it anywhere. I’ve made drapes, done pants hemming and all sorts of things with this stuff. My brother-in-law Rob is marketing it. It was invented by a London man and I hardly ever use a measuring tape anymore!! This is not a paid endorsement. I’m a fan!
Another oddball lighting scenario – The light in my bathroom in and older farmhouse was ‘afraid’ of the dark. Turning on the light fixture at night meant a wait while it slowly came on, but in even low daylight, the light came on immediately. Nothing seemed to help, even different bulbs in this older ceiling fixture and I wasn’t excited about making major changes.
The new owners of that house have completely revamped the floor plan and old bathroom is now a walk-in closet with a new functioning light fixture.
I guess that’s a drastic way to “fix” it!!!
You’re amazing: the perfect combination of vision, patience, creativity and know-how. Oh, and manual labour (Hi Derek!) – all coming together for a perfect solution that’s within your budget. Just incredible!