Flea Market Flip Out

Back in the fall Mark and I were at the flea market over on Broadway, and Mark found a nice medicine cabinet that was of the same era as our house. He got all excited.

"It'll look nice in our vintage bathroom" Mark said. "Just take down that big ugly mirror and put this in there."

"Sure, I can do that. No problem." I told him.

And that is how it always starts. Some little innocent sounding home improvement project that goes off the rails. Seriously, what could go wrong? Simply remove the old mirror, four screws, and install the new one. Oh, did I mention that the new vintage medicine cabinet also is wired and has lamps? Anyway, I unscrewed the four screws securing the old mirror to the wall and gave it a tug. Nothing, didn't budge. It was glued to the wall and I would have to pry it loose. So I taped it up with duct tape and started prying, and tugging, and wedging it off of there with a metal scraper. It still wouldn't come loose. So I started tapping at the scraper with a hammer, then I started tapping at the mirror itself with a hammer. Suddenly there were shards of glass everywhere. It turned out that there was an opening behind the old mirror where the original medicine cabinet had been. I found that out when the hammer went right through the glass and kept going. So I continued to hammer at the mirror and got much of it off of the wall... and on to the floor, sink, toilet, in my pants, everywhere. Unfortunately, not all of it came off. I am now stuck with tiny shards of mirror stuck hard to the tile wall. I have chiseled at it and scraped it, but it is slow going. Very slow going. I have given up for now. I'll go to the little hardware store over at Devon and Clark tomorrow. It's a real old timey hardware store full of old guys who seem to have an answer for every problem. Not like Lowes or Home Depot, where they just tell you an aisle number and wish you luck.