A quality medicine cabinet can be pricey. And for many bathrooms, a store-bought cabinet just won’t add the charm you’re looking for. Building a medicine cabinet to suit your bathroom is a perfect DIY project because it allows you to get a custom fit, and you can design it to match the style of your inner sanctum perfectly.
Design hints
When dreaming up your perfect medicine cabinet, there are some obstacles to look out for. First and foremost, if the wall is load bearing, take the proper precautions as you work to keep its structure sound.
First, map out where any plumbing or wiring is located on the wall you will mount the cabinet on. Often a wet wall—one that features a sink—is extra deep to accommodate a vent pipe, so you might have as much as 6" of wall depth to work with, or as little as 4". To extend the depth of a cabinet, use a thick casing around the outside, allowing the cabinet to protrude from the wall an extra 3/4".
Ensure that glass shelves are well anchored so they don’t fall out of the cabinet. One trick is to let the outer casing protrude into the cabinet opening 1/4" to act as a stop, preventing the shelves from moving forward. You could also use a locking shelf-pin designed for 5-mm holes. With a clamping flange to lock the shelf in place, it can’t move forward or be knocked upward off its supports.
Getting started
* View a detailed illustration of the medicine cabinet plans.
Use 3⁄4"-thick paint-grade maple plywood for the cabinet box. It’s plenty strong for shelf pins and it takes paint well. Rip strips of plywood to the proper width; in this case 5". Cut the strips to their proper length. Remember that the bottom and top fit inside the two side pieces, so subtract 11⁄2" from the overall width to get the length of the cabinet’s bottom and top pieces.
Simple joinery gets the job done. Cut biscuit slots to join the corners of the cabinet together. Centring a #20 biscuit allows room for a screw or brad at the front and back corners—making for a strong cabinet. A rabbet joint will work well too, although butt joints reinforced with biscuits make the math very easy.
Give the shelves a place to rest by drilling corresponding rows of 5-mm shelf-pin holes. Commercial jigs that use a 5-mm self-centring drill bit are available, but I use a shopmade jig and a 5-mm bit chucked in a plunge router. You can also use 1⁄4" shelf-pin holes, but it’s not as easy to find good glass shelf pins in that size.
After dry-fitting the box together, cut a piece of 1⁄4"-thick MDF or plywood to size for the back panel. Add some glue to the biscuit slots and clamp the sides and back together, adding some screws or brads to lock the joints. Then flip the cabinet onto its front and apply a bead of glue and some brads to the back. To square the cabinet, line up the back panel with one side and tack it with a couple of brads. Square up an adjacent edge and tack it in place. Then nail off the rest of the back, making sure the brads don’t penetrate the line of rear shelf-pin holes.
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