Pink Bathroom Chronicles: The Medicine Cabinet

In my copious free time lately, I've taken up the task of giving our tiny pink bathroom a bit of a facelift. In the last year, I had zero plans to touch the bathroom due to the fact that it was our only one and having it out of order would be a serious detriment to our hygiene and um....other needs. Not that it wasn't in serious need of change. Here's a picture I took on moving day. So. Much. PINK.

And then a couple weeks ago the door to our medicine cabinet unceremoniously detached itself. 

I guess the cheap particle board was no match for the humidity. You may also notice how the thing sticks out in a weird way...almost as though it were supposed to be recessed into the wall, but someone was too lazy/ignorant/cheap to do it properly. So when I took it down, behold the ironic opening that I found:

I imagine YEARS ago, someone had constructed this frame to fit a lovely recessed medicine cabinet, but somewhere along the way someone just said "fuck it" and replaced it with a too-large cabinet by tacking it up over the hole. You guys don't understand how much this infuriates me. Laziness and poor judgment, teaming up to make the world an uglier place. *rips hair out*

I got the blessing from my landlady to find a replacement, but she wasn't interested in spending the going rate of about $150 for a new cabinet. 

Bet you see where this is going. 

Yes. CRAIGSLIST AGAIN.

People usually ask how I get so "lucky" when it comes to Craigslist, to which I reply that it's not luck, it's persistence and constantly wading through endless amounts of crap to find something good. But in the case of this new medicine cabinet, it was ALL luck. My very first search unearthed a posting for a medicine cabinet very similar to our previous one, but brand new, clean, perfect dimensions for the hole in the wall, and $20!!! (I think this seriously messed with my Craigslist Karma, because I haven't found anything good in weeks)

Anyway, thar she blows:

Ripping out the old cabinet had revealed some not-so-pretty chips and cruft in the paint, so I threw a spackle party. After cleaning up the debris, I used a putty knife and this tub of spackle to make things all nice and smooooth.

All spackled and sanded:

Man, these photos are awful. Do you know how hard it is to take good photos of a 25 square foot bathroom? I'm standing on the toilet for most of these.

So here we are with the new cabinet installed. I just used four wood screws to secure the cabinet to the wooden frame. Now it sits nicely inside the hole like a properly fitted recessed medicine cabinet should. We have officially gained FOUR precious inches of space in this bathroom and you would be surprised what a difference it makes. All I have left to do is paint over the patchiness. 

I'm standing in the bathtub for this one:

Oh hey, you know what that cabinet in the reflection is? That's FORESHADOWING, people!