Carty is Done!

I've been really busy this weekend. I spent most of the weekend in the bathroom. No, not like that. Gross. I've been installing Sir Cartwright (whose name officially has been changed to Carty), my $50 Restoration Hardware medicine cabinet.

My boyfriend and I replaced the medicine cabinet that came with the condo, which was recessed and had a plastic cabinet with plastic shelves with Carty! Here's the old medicine cabinet:

Now I'll take you on the play-by-play, all the way to Cartyville! This is what we had to start with, the old medicine cabinet which is recessed - just like the new one - but is much smaller.

Once the old medicine cabinet was out, we could see the rough-in that had been created with boards.

Notice the plaster & lathe walls. Lovely. (Ew.)

I stuck my phone in the cavity and pointed down. This is what I saw!

Then I did the same thing pointing up! That yellow piece you can see is an old cardboard soap bar box.

Next we started making cuts. We ended up using both a jigsaw and a reciprocating saw.

We also used a drill bit in a few places to make holes so that the jigsaw could access the places it needed to cut more easily.

There was a lot of tricky maneuvering involved.

Here we are, almost halfway done with the new opening. The new hole had to be about 6 inches taller and a few inches wider. 

The entire cutting process took hours because there were a lot of nails and screws in the way. 

Once the hole was big enough, we slid the cabinet in and screwed it in place.

So before I show you how Carty looks, here's a look at the old cabinet again:

Here's the final product!

And the inside!

I still have to paint a little where the paint was messed up and probably caulk around the cabinet, but it looks great. It was really difficult, but it wasn't too bad. I'm really glad I have a shop-vac that I used to clean up quickly. Overall it was an awesome weekend project!