Welcome to LittleHomeProjects, in this video
I'm mounting a prebuilt medicine cabinet to
replace this temporary vanity mirror.
We found
this medicine cabinet at our local box store, it was the prebuilt display model and we got
a great deal on it, it was 75% off. I'm going
to go ahead and mount it into our bathroom.
It's not perfect but all the imperfections
make it a great buy. In the store it was mounted
by just these two screws holes in the top
of the back of the medicine cabinet. I don't
have the service manual for this to know if
I am mounting this right, so I am going to
have to put some extra thought in how its
going to sit on the wall. I decided for added
support I would use some washers against the
top of the back of the medicine cabinet. This
will support the top as well as pulling it
tight to the wall. I used a stud finder to
locate my studs in my bathroom, I knew they
were not going to line up to where they had
the holes originally drilled so I will have
to be drilling my own. The stud finder was
giving me inconstant results because of the
type of insulation we had in our walls. I
think I found the right spot so I marked down
with a level to give me a nice straight line
from the top to the bottom. I measured those
marks from the outside of the wall so i had
clean measurement to transfer the marks to
the inside of the cabinet for later on. Something
else i wanted to do was find the dead center
of where I wanted the medicine cabinet to
be. It just so happens that my light is already
mounted in this spot and my sink is already
mounted in the same spot, so it was a pretty
easy measurement. I transferred a line of
that center marl from the top to the bottom.
I did a rough dry fit to make sure I liked
the way the medicine cabinet was going to
sit. I decided I wanted it a bit higher so
I adjusted and go ahead with mounting it.
To make sure it was in the right spot I measured
the dead center of the medicine cabinet. I
put a piece of tape down to protect the cabinet
from the pencil park, and then I drew the
mark of the center line. I repeated the same
steps on the bottom, finding the center, putting
down a piece of tape, and marking the line.
Now I will be able to line these two marks
up with the center line I drew on the wall.
I also measured from the center line to where
the studs were on my wall. I will be able
to transfer this measurement to the inside
of the medicine cabinet. That way I will know
where to drill my holes. I discovered quickly
it was going to be easier to remove the front
door off of the cabinet before I transfer
my marks on the inside. I transferred the
center line wall measurements to the inside
of the cabinet, finding the center line and
then measuring out from that line. I put the
washers were I wanted them to be and used
a marker to mark the center of the washer.
This is where I will drill my holes. I used
a drill be just a little bit smaller than
my screws, that way everything will pull nice
and tight. With the holes drilled and the
marks marked I can move the medicine cabinet
into place and make sure everything lined
up. I found that my center line didn't come
down low enough so I had to extend it. I used
a level on the top of the medicine cabinet
to make sure it was nice and straight. This
was definitely the hardest part of the entire
job. Getting it in the right spot making sure
it was level and then getting some screws
into place to keep it from moving. If you
have an extra pair of hands it will go a long
way to making this part of the job easier.
With the first screw in place I checked for
level again just to make sure, adjusted, and
went ahead and screwed in the next screw.
I found with just the two screws on the top
it wasn't enough, it still wanted to wiggle
around. I through a couple of extra screws
into the studs at the bottom as well. To make
sure the screw would sit as flush to the wall
as possible I got a slightly larger drill
bit to bore out just a bit of the surface
to the screw would sink slightly into the
wood. I repeated those same steps on the other
side and drilled in the screw. This is when
i found that i had missed the stud. I was
off by almost a half inch. It wasn't my measurements,
the stud itself was probably bent in the middle
a bit. In any case I still missed, so i had
to pull the screw back out and move it over
a little bit and try again. It went in just
fine the second time though. I repeated the
drill step to bore out a little bit for the
surface of the head, screwed it down tight.
As soon as those bottom screws were in it
felt much more solid. I went back to the top
to tighten up the screws, I had left them
a little lose just in case i need to adjust
anything, and as I was tightening these I
found that the top left screw was also missing
the stud. My stud finder was definitely off,
or something else i did was wrong. I pulled
it back out and moved it over a half inch
and re-drilled it. That got the job done just
right. I'll come back to these a little bit
later on and paint the screw heads and washers
white so they are not so obvious but really
once the doors are on it won't be noticed
by anyone. I took a pencil eraser and went
through the entire space to remove any pencil
marks on the walls. The final step for mounting
this is to put the doors back on. I made sure
that each door went back into the same location,
and i threaded the screws in by had just to
get them started so that i knew that i was
not twisting the door frames at all. I did
this for each of the doors. Pretty quickly
it was done. I tested each of the door to
make sure everything opened up the way they
were supposed to, and everything works smoothly.
One last additional thing i did for this medicine
cabinet was because it was a display model
it did have some dings and scratches on it.
I picked up a white wood filler crayon, and
I wanted to see if it would make a difference,
and I found that it was acceptable. I would
have also been easy to just use paint but
this did the job just fine. It was a two dollar
pen, I filled three or four scratches and
i have about 99% of a pen left. That finished
the install of the prebuilt medicine cabinet.
If found this to be a relatively simple project.
I was afraid of how much weight the screws
would be able to support but really giving
a t good pull it feels solid, i'm pretty happy
with it. The main things to keep in mind though
is that if you are drilling into your walls
you want to make sure you hit a stud, and
you also want to make sure there is no wires
or plumbing where you're going to be drilling,
so make sure you are clear there. When you
are hanging the medicine cabinet, if you have
an extra pair of hands to hold it still while
you are mounting it, it will make the job
a lot easier. That's it for this video, this
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for watching.
