Sneak peak inside my medicine cabinet

Since I wrote about something as boring as trim + baseboards last, I thought I'd reward you...by letting you look inside my medicine cabinet. For those of you who have already peaked inside it when visiting, you can keep reading too because I've changed things up a little.

Our medicine cabinet is a pretty standard apartment-grade affair -- fairly small, nothing exciting, but not totally horrible either.

(note: in case it's confusing, the colorful circles on the bottom corner aren't on the mirror, it's just a reflection of something we have on the opposite wall...which I'm scheming to replace)

Frankly I don't see inside it too often because we don't keep much of value in there -- most of our stuff is in the cabinet under the sink and in the wicker set of drawers that fits perfectly next to the toilet (just FYI, in case you come visit and want to see where all the interesting things are hidden...like Q-tips, hair dryer, all the extra toothbrushes and free dental supplies that appear in the apartment by virtue of having a partner who works for a dental school, etc). But I still thought it would be fun to jazz things up a little, just to induce a little smile on those occasions when I do go looking for a band-aid or whatever random other things are in there. It's not exactly organized logically....

So I decided that an easy (easy!) and free (free!) makeover was in the cards. What did I do? I applied decorative contact paper to the back and bottom to add a little interest. As for how I did it, first I cleared everything out, and used it as an opportunity to throw away everything that we didn't need/was an empty container/etc. Then I removed the two glass shelves (which slide right out), and washed them in the sink for good measure. Lastly, I measured and cut some contact paper (which I already had on hand from the tv stand project) and applied it very carefully (making sure to smooth out air bubbles using the edge of a credit card). I did it in two pieces -- one for the back that was slightly longer so that it overflowed onto the bottom a little, and one that fit perfectly on the bottom (which I put on second). The credit card came in handy for making sure the back piece was creased nice and crisply along the bottom back edge, if that makes sense.

Then I put the shelves back in and loaded in all our stuff, trying to make it a little neater than it was previously.

It's still a disorganized, small, dingy, short term medicine cabinet, but at least it's a little prettier now! And did I mention that it was free? And it only took me 15 minutes.

And now I'm thinking maybe we need to get/display some more attractive toiletries. Some Oops! products would look pretty darn snazzy in there....

Anyway, I may have some other, bigger updates for the bathroom planned, so stay tuned! (mostly because I'm trying to keep myself busy while I procrastinate painting the trim in the study (boring) and painting the kitchen (daunting)).