As I pack up, and purge, and daydream about our ‘forever’ {for a reno at least} home… I randomly starting thinking about the strangest part of a house ~ medicine cabinets.

Has anyone else noticed that medicine cabinets seem to be disappearing from bathrooms everywhere?

what. the. heck?!

Does it really even matter if there’s a medicine cabinet in the bathroom? Am I just getting stuck in old thinking about storage and being practical?

I don’t have a medicine cabinet in my bathroom now, or any other {built-in} storage for that matter. And maybe that’s why this is weirdly on my mind at all! But at least my current bathroom is the size of a bedroom {literally}, so in addition to a vintage dresser which acts as a creative linen cabinet for most of the bathroom sundries, I have a tall shelf for other bathroom supplies and also went out a got a portable caddy so that everything I need for getting ready in the morning and at night, that would normally be in my medicine cabinet, is right there by the sink. Out in the open on not very attractive display. hmph. If you’re curious, this is my current bathroom situation {I know, it looks sad… that credenza is just begging for some art above it, and better accessories, and brighter paint! The list goes on ~ forever… but alas, it wasn’t meant to be here}

Not the sexiest.

Honestly I’m not surprised by any cheap corner-cutting that I see in a rental, but I am noticing that medicine cabinets are disappearing from homes that people own. I think it’s one of two things {or maybe a combination of both}. The great trend of bold guest baths with fancy mirrors is taking over the main bathrooms ~most fancy mirrors not being attached to medicine cabinets, or developers are getting lazier and lazier and foregoing medicine cabinets for the easier to install surface mounted mirrors.

But no matter where this trend is coming from, I’m not sure I’m in love with it…

I love that bathrooms are having their moment in the design world, with more bold colors and design choices, especially in half baths, which are usually on the main floor and used by guests so they are a bit more of a ‘special moment’ in a way. And I think since bathrooms are a smaller space in general, there’s a bit more permission to have some more fun, take a few more risks, and be a bit more playful.

These guest baths look spectacular, and you don’t really need storage in a guest bath so it’s easy to be more creative and bold with the design and fancy {not medicine cabinet} mirrors. {also yes to all of these wallpapers & tiles!}

And here are some great master baths with fancy mirrors and not a medicine cabinet to be found anywhere.

I love thinking outside the box, and definitely don’t think we should keep implementing the same solution in any space just because we’ve been doing something a certain way for a long time. But one thing that I do like about medicine cabinets {as unsexy as they might be to look at} is that everything you need for the morning and night routine is right there, at eye level, easy to reach, but still out of sight, just behind that mirror…

In the photos above, there is a decent amount of storage in the base cabinets of the bathrooms. And I’m big believer that if you’re going to take away storage from one place, you need to make up for it somewhere else… you can’t add a problem or a challenge with design, you should be solving them with design!

So if you’re foregoing a medicine cabinet for a fancy mirror, do you have adequate storage elsewhere in the space?

Maybe more than I miss actual medicine cabinets, I just think it’s important to account for how a space is really used, and make sure you accommodate for those needs. We need to be real about how people live in and use spaces, right?! And these days, like it or not, people have lots of stuff, and it’s a waste of a beautiful space if you can’t use it or enjoy it because it doesn’t function.

What are your thoughts on this one, are you with me that medicine cabinets are great workhorses and should stay? Do you think I’m crazy for liking them so much?! Or do you have some other amazing bathroom storage solutions that you are just dying to share with me???

 

 

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