Bathroom Medicine Cabinets

Most bathrooms come equipped with a built in medicine cabinet. The medicine cabinet is recessed into the wall and usually a mirrored door is put almost flush with the wall. The design was very ingenious and allows for all kinds of toiletries like shaving lotion, razors and the like to be stored conveniently and leave the counter top free for other bathroom conventions like fresh flowers or folded towels.

The originator of recessed bathroom medicine cabinets had to have had a blueprint in his mind. The earliest manufacturer of medicine cabinets that can be found online is Concord Supplies located in Illinois and taking massive orders for medicine cabinets as early as 1946. The owner of the wholesale supply had to invent the copier machine to keep up with his orders. From that we see that bathroom medicine cabinets are not built by carpenters but are factory assembled to fit specific sizes.

The recessed area in the modern bathroom that is to take the medicine cabinet has to conform to the size ordered from the manufacturer. Medicine cabinets are made of metal with glass doors and can come in many sizes. The older bathrooms also have recessed bathroom medicine cabinets that might rust or need replacement for some other reason. Changing a recessed medicine cabinet requires some careful planning as the cabinet has been installed to stay and is not easily detached without causing some damage to the wall surrounding it.
There must have been a reason for the recessed bathroom cabinet to have been called a medicine cabinet.

It seems reasonable to assume that medicine was to be stored in the cabinet which was always above the bathroom sink and out of reach of children. The medicine cabinet was a safety precaution as well as a convenient storage cabinet for the family. The safest medicine cabinets on the market have metal shelves. Some of the earliest medicine cabinets had glass shelves. Since these cabinets are manufactured according to specifications for general sizes that can be ordered by builders and home remodelers, the size of the shelves or the size of the items that can be stored must conform to the builders model.

There is something interesting about bathroom medicine cabinets and modern tastes in bathrooms. In some of the more exotic bathrooms, featuring double or triple mirrors, there might not be a recessed medicine cabinet. The tradition of the mirror above the vanity remains but the cabinet has been omitted in favor of extra lighting displays along with the larger mirrors.