Bathroom Medicine Cabinet Part One

We finally started the medicine cabinet.  

First, we drew on the wall, a simple outline of the front of the cabinet.  

Then we cut the sheet rock with a zip saw.

To cut down on the dust I followed Les' zip saw with the shop vac.
Worked good!

Then Les pried on the sheet rock until a piece popped off.

The first piece broke at the taped joint.

Even though we tried to check as best we could, we found this black plumbing vent pipe on the edge of our opening.  Nothing to do now but continue on.  Les came up with a way to work around the pipe, what a smart guy.
(I'll show ya later what we did.)

Pull Les!!!  Check out that face!!!

We pulled the rest of the dry wall out in one piece, which was good because we wanted to use it to fix the hole below that we had to open for the plumbing.

Next Les cut out the studs with a reciprocating saw. 
He was very careful trying not to damage the dry wall on the other side. But in the end we had to patch two or three small holes. One from the blade and others from the nails in the studs. Luckily they are mostly covered by a picture on the hallway side.

Tada!!! What a great hole in the wall.
Only a DIYer would get so excited about a hole in their wall.

Then we moved on to building the box to go in that hole. 

 First, we cut the vertical slats.  Then we marked them for the holes for our movable shelves.  Les used a square and accurate markings so that in the end the shelves will be level.

Next we drilled all the holes with a drill press.
You could use a regular drill only it's much harder to get the holes straight. We clamped two to three boards together and drill through all at the same time. Much faster.

Warning: Tedious drilling may drain your brain.
 (Notice Les' blank expression after all that drilling.)

After the sides were done we cut the top and bottom and put it together.  We chose to use bead board for the back of the cabinet.  I think it adds nice character.

If you look closely, you can see a small gap at the far end.  That's due to the pipe we found in the wall.  It will be covered by the face frame.

Well I'm so happy with our box! This whole project is a new experience. So far so good. Any whoo, I thought I'd show you what we hope the finished product will look like.  Below is the drawing I did.  We have decided to change the top where the crown molding is, but other than that we our following this drawing and the photo below.

This photo is from This Old House magazine (Jan. 2010)  I love that magazine.   

 This shows the style. 

So we are one step closer.  What do ya think?