{"id":45644,"date":"2025-06-21T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=45644"},"modified":"2026-06-05T07:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:09:31","slug":"the-great-big-medicine-cabinet-of-my-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-great-big-medicine-cabinet-of-my-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Big Medicine Cabinet of My Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"36-x36-medicine-cabinet\"<\/a>
The great big medicine cabinet of my dreams was installed this week. Recessing it into the wall required removing studs and putting in a header. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s here at last — the great big medicine cabinet of my dreams.<\/p>\n

It’s big, big, big — a full 36 inches wide and 36 inches tall. Inside its lovely mirrored doors are ten, count ’em ten, shelves. Some tall. Some short. Some just right.<\/p>\n

I have been dreaming of this medicine cabinet ever since Jon and I moved into this house back in 1978. For decades, we made do with a few vanity drawers and one deep, dark, very awkward cupboard built in at the foot of the bathtub.<\/p>\n

It’s a common interior design trick — build a closet to fill the narrow space between the foot of the tub and the bathroom wall. The result, inevitably, is a cupboard nightmare — too deep and too dark to be of much use.<\/p>\n

\"deep-dark-cupboard\"<\/a>
Just one of several messy shelves in our deep, dark cupboard. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our particular nightmare is thirteen inches wide and a full twenty-eight inches deep.<\/p>\n

The first few inches of that cupboard have been accessible and useful. The spaces behind those first few inches, however, have been worse than useless.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to Jon and me, those spaces collected a lot of weird stuff over the years. An army of\u00a0 of half-empty hydrogen peroxide bottles, expired. A otoscope for looking into kids’ ears. A travel clothesline. A urinal. A snake bite kit.<\/p>\n

But now at last I can empty out that very narrow, very deep cupboard of ours and throw things away.<\/p>\n

What I don’t throw away, I will put in my brand-new, great big medicine cabinet where the shelves are 3 1\/2 inches deep — and provide a full fifteen linear feet of visible, useful, no-nonsense storage space.<\/p>\n

Accountability will prevail: expired peroxide will get tossed. Bandaids will not get lost behind cough medicine. Toothpaste will not be buried under cotton balls.<\/p>\n

And the snake bite kit? It will be right there where I can find it the next time I bump into a rattlesnake.<\/p>\n

\"interior-huge-medicine-cabinet\"<\/a>
I could do without all the dizzying mirrors inside this cabinet. But the fifteen linear feet of shelves will keep me organized. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"36-x36-medicine-cabinet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The great big medicine cabinet of my dreams has arrived — with its fifteen linear feet of shelving.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,221],"tags":[2857,3002,3004,1188,3005,3006,3007],"class_list":["post-45644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-house-and-garden","tag-bath-remodel","tag-bathtubs","tag-cupboards","tag-house","tag-medicine-cabinets","tag-shelving","tag-storage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45644"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48514,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45644\/revisions\/48514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}