The bathroom has a medicine cabinet where the mirrors are degrading (I guess they’re losing their “silvering” from years of steam?)
The cabinet has two hinged, swing-out doors whose construction appears to be just a flat piece of (flimsyish) wood approximately half an inch thick with the mirror simply glued onto it.
Would it possible to order custom-cut mirrors and just replace the existing ones on the same doors? Or would it be too difficult to extricate the old mirrors from the doors and therefore requiring new doors to be constructed as well?
Seems to me that prying the old mirror off the plywood – it’s just glued on? – ought not to be too awfully hard. Once you do that, any glass shop in town will sell you a piece of mirror, cut to size. For not much more, they’ll safety-bevel the edges.
But prying the old one off… What if you pry at the wrong angle and it shatters? So glue something onto the front, like burlap or canvas, so it it does break, you don’t get a bazillion splinters. Then get a wide chisel and pry it away, millimeter by millimeter.
I’m assuming there’s no frame, the entire door is a mirror stuck on a thin wood panel. Remove the entire cabinet if you can, just the doors if not, and take it all to a glass shop. Ask them if they can just replace the mirrors. If not they’ll give you more options.
You can try to do this yourself, but remember that custom cut mirrors are non-returnable, as are mirrors that fall off the door if not glued properly, or end up misaligned, or any of the other things that can go wrong.
Typically medicine cabinets are mounted to fit fairly close in the studs of the wall. If there’s just four or so screws holding the entire cabinet in, then it’s a simple matter to pull the whole thing out, and after you score the edges where the cabinet meets the wall.
I’d just get a new medicine cabinet … it might be cheaper than repairing the old mirror.
Repeating, make sure the wall board, paint and and chalking to cut through before you yank the cabinet out … otherwise you’ll be making a big job out of what should be an hour’s task.
John Mace Yeah the doors are easily removable, I’m just trying to figure out if it’s worth the hassle of trying to pry off the existing mirrors versus getting new doors made (I am not really handy when it comes to making things out of wood myself, and I don’t really have the right tools).
TriPolar, yes I considered just bringing the doors to a shop and asking them to do it but I suspect they would charge me a small fortune (I live in NYC). It looks like I can order the mirrors online cut to size for a hundred bucks or so total. Though maybe I should go and actually ask how much this would cost, perhaps I will be surprised.
watchwolf49, getting a whole new cabinet, well I just know I would never find a new one in the exact right dimensions to fit in the old hole and again, I’m not handy enough to adjust for any differences in sizing there. Plus I would probably break the wall/tiles irreparably trying to get the old one out
The mirror might pop right off, or it might shatter into a million pieces. If it’s just particle board or something that the cabinet door is made out of, it will cost you pennies to replace it. Why bother with the old mirror?
Or, better yet, take the door with mirror on to a local from shop and have them make you a new one. If you don’t feel handy enough, it’ll be worth the price. They’ll glue it on properly, which you probably won’t do.
Yeah, ask them. May not be that bad and worth the convenience. I’d order mirrors online as a last resort, too many things could go wrong, but maybe that’s just me.
Will do. In addition to the mirror not coming cleanly off the old wood, as John Mace mentioned, the new mirror just falling off later is also something I had considered and was worried about.
For something not fancy, does anyone know ballpark how much would one expect for something like this to cost? The doors are about 1’ x 2’ each.
You can probably get a new medicine cabinet for a similar cost to replacing the mirrors. Measure your cabinet and check at your local hardware store/home depot/IKEA. We regularly get new replacement mirrors cut, but I also often just put on a new medicine cabinet rather thsn fixing up an old one.
If you do decide to replace the mirrors just take the doors into the glass shop as others have suggested. Properly installed mirrors should be hung with both clips and proper adhesive. The glass shop will know what they are doing.
I replaced the rusty medicine cabinet in my house’s hall bathroom. 4 screws and it pops/in out of the wall.
The new one has a oval mirror in a wood frame. The mirror mysteriously cracked down the middle a few months after I installed the medicine cabinet.
I removed the entire door and took to a glass shop. They couldn’t cut oval glass. But they ordered one for me and installed it in the wood frame. That was 20 years ago and it’s never cracked again.
Can you find a molding to cover the edges and a bit of the perimeter?
No need to get new glass/cabinet or remove the existing mirrors.
And:
Before deciding “It’s too difficult for me”, check the dimensions of the existing cabinet. “Medicine Cabinets” (the worst place to store medicines, btw) come in standard sizes. Odds are your basic big box “home improvement” (yeah, right…) store will have replacement cabinets to match.
There ought to be studs on each side and more framing at top and bottom. There are likely 4 screws through the cabinet sides into the studs.
If the current doors are larger than the box (cabinet), you are likely to find a new cabinet with doors at least as large as the current ones.
I wasn’t aware the cabinets come in standard sizes, when I look online they seem to come in all sorts of different dimensions. If the replacement doesn’t fit exactly in terms of L, W, and D then I will probably be bad at making it fit well. But I’ll look into it.
Also the wall is old plaster/lath with a tendency to crumble, very annoying to work with.
usedtobe, the spots unfortunately can’t be hidden by molding, it’s many inches in. (There are actually multiple pieces of mirror that make up the surface.)