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Story
My wife undertook a minor remodeling of our second bathroom. This consisted of removing the old wallpaper, sanding, painting and a bunch of new wall hangings and fixtures. My role in this was to redo to lighting above the sink and putting a frame around the mirror.
Master bath mirror frame.
Master bath sink recess ceiling lights.
Both the lights and frame ideas derived from what we had previously done in the master bathroom (more details of that project on the Master Bathroom Sink Ceiling Page). Both these bathrooms have a recessed ceiling area above the sinks and both previously had fluorescent light fixtures in the area able the sinks.
We have also been on a mission to purge our house of any fluorescent light fixtures, and this would be the penultimate project to realize that dream.
Demolition
After old lights removed.
Old flourescent fixture.
Light boxes after light removal.
Wiring
Main junction box installed.
Preparing to install main junction box.
The wiring for the old fluorescent fixture came directly out of a crude hole in the ceiling sheet-rock. To make this safer, I put that wire in a junction box firmly mounted to the wall just below the ceiling. This area will be hidden in the end result.
We were using this ultra thin round LED lights which each have their own mini-junction box, so I wired these up as well. This will also be out of sight sitting in the box above the sink.
Second light junction box wired.
Light junction box (closeup).
Ceiling Panels
Waiting caulking and LED lights.
Light junction boxes installed.
The fluorescent fixtures sat in the box area and has some translucent polycarbonate panels covering the two rectangular holes which let the light through. Since our LED lights were smaller and round, I needed a couple pieces of plywood with a circular hole in them to close up the larger rectangular openings.
I bought a nifty large circle cutting tool for the master bathroom project that I was able to also put to use on this project.
Mirror Frame
Mirror frame bevel (closeup).
Mirror frame pieces before finishing.
The simple version of the frame to go around the mirror is just three pieces. I'd bevel it to add a little bit of style.
Biscuit joining mirror frame corners.
Although the frame would be screwed into the wall on all sides, I still used a biscuit joiner for the angle ends where the come together. The main purpose of this was to keep the faces of the two faces even and stable so that any movement over time did not begin to show as a line as the caulking was stressed.
Mirror frame cutouts for mirror brackets.
Setup for routing mirror frame cutouts.
The first complication was needing to route out some pockets where the brackets that hold the mirror to the wall are placed. In theory, the frame itself would be strong enough to hold the mirror in place, but I also did not want anyone removing the frame to be surprised when the mirror came crashing down on them. These other brackets are unambiguous in what they are doing so keeping them was a good safeguard.
Mirror frame spacer (closeup).
Gluing spacers to allow mirror frame to lay flat.
The next complication was ensuring the frame sat evenly on the wall and mirror. The mirror protrudes from the wall, so if you screw the frame into the wall it will begin to force the frame to tilt into the wall as it pivots on the mirror's edge. By adding some spacers to the back on the edge that would be above the wall, this allowed it to stay even no matter where you applied pressure.
Caulking and Painting
Lights installed waiting for painting.
My wife handled the caulking and painting around the lights, mirror frame and screw holes. Then we could install then lights themselves.
Final Result
Lights after painting.
Finished lights (left view).