Bespoke mirror cabinet
When that roof gets in the way...
Sloping ceilings can add character to a room.
They can also make fitting bathroom furniture considerably more complicated.
In this Harvington bathroom, the vanity area and mirror cabinet needed to sit directly beneath a sloping ceiling. A standard rectangular mirror cabinet would either have been too narrow for the space or simply wouldn't have fitted beneath the roofline.
Rather than compromise the vanity area around a standard-sized cabinet, the solution was to have a bespoke mirror cabinet manufactured to follow the shape of the roof.
Simple idea.
The measurements needed rather more thought.
Why a standard mirror cabinet wouldn't work
Both this bathroom and the main bathroom at the opposite end of the building had vanity areas positioned beneath areas of sloping ceiling.
In this room, there was a good amount of width available above the vanity, but the roofline reduced the usable height on one side.
Choosing a standard cabinet narrow enough to fit beneath the lowest part of the ceiling would have left an oddly narrow mirror and wasted much of the available wall space.
Going bespoke meant we could use the available space rather than fitting an oddly narrow cabinet simply because it was a standard size.
Designing around the sloping ceiling
The overall width of the cabinet created the next consideration.
It was too wide for one practical mirrored door, so the front needed to be split into two sections.
The sloping side then affected the way one of those doors could physically open.
The cabinet shape, division between the two mirrored doors and hinge arrangement all had to be considered together. The doors needed to open comfortably once the cabinet was installed, while still allowing the finished mirror to follow the roofline.
I'll admit, I was slightly hesitant when measuring for this one.
Once a bespoke cabinet has been manufactured to a specific shape, there is considerably less opportunity for adjustment on site.
We used a longstanding supplier to manufacture the cabinet to the measurements and unusual shape required. Before the order was placed, I needed to be confident that the dimensions, door split and opening arrangement were right.
I'm a big fan of the phrase, measure twice, cut once.
In this case, it was definitely:
Measure three times, order once.
More than a made-to-measure mirror
The cabinet was bespoke because of its shape, but it still needed to provide all the functionality expected from a high-specification bathroom mirror cabinet.
The mirrored doors incorporate demist glass and sensor-controlled edge lighting, creating an evenly illuminated mirror above the vanity.
The cabinet is also internally lit, with adjustable glass shelving providing practical storage for bathroom essentials.
An internal power point was incorporated into the cabinet too, keeping electrical items accessible without adding clutter around the vanity worktop.
Every feature needed to work within a cabinet already being manufactured to an unusual shape.
A bespoke solution that uses the available space
The finished cabinet follows the angle of the sloping ceiling and uses the available width above the vanity without making the area feel cramped.
The door arrangement had been the part I was most hesitant about when measuring, but once fitted it worked exactly as hoped and remained comfortable to use.
The edge lighting frames the mirror and gives the vanity area a strong visual feature, while the internal storage makes practical use of space that a standard cabinet couldn't have filled in the same way.
Most importantly, the cabinet doesn't look as though it has been squeezed beneath an awkward roofline.
It looks like it belongs there.
Measure three times, order once
Custom-manufactured pieces inevitably require more planning than an off-the-shelf alternative.
There is a longer lead time and usually a higher cost, but in spaces where standard furniture creates an obvious compromise, a bespoke solution can make far better use of the room.
For this cabinet, getting the measurements, door split and opening arrangement right before placing the order was critical.
Our longstanding supplier really came through. The finished cabinet fitted the space as intended and turned a difficult section of sloping ceiling into one of the defining features of the vanity area.
The full video walkthrough of this bathroom project can also be found in our Case Studies section.
Planning a bathroom around an awkward space?
Sloping ceilings, unusual room shapes and restricted wall space don't always work neatly with standard bathroom furniture.
Sometimes the right solution is to work with the shape of the room and create something specifically for it.
If you're planning a bathroom renovation in Stourbridge, Solihull or elsewhere across the West Midlands and have an awkward space, unusual roofline or an idea that needs a more bespoke approach, I'd be happy to discuss what might be possible.
Do you have a bespoke project you'd like to discuss?