If you wanted a deeper cabinet, you could recess and have some sticking out ;) too. A third option! I've had recessed in old bathroom and it was fine. I now have a new surface mounted one that just got put up this friday. I have an exterior wall in cold Iowa. It was made for me by my fab carpenter to go with an old Robern medicine cabinet mirror door I've had for 20 years (got it for free in an alley outside a design shop-she said "take it"). With the recessed and want to change the set in the future, you'd have to do major wall repair or find a cabinet that fits. But wouldn't that be unlikely? If I didn't like the protrusion, then recessed is what I'd do.

FWIW- I wish I had done recessed medicine cabinets BEFORE the drywall went up. We are having ours installed now after the fact . I prefer the recessed style for two main reasons:1) it's a cleaner more finished look 2) if you will be needing to place lighting above each cabinet it will give you more clearance as well as more room between you the faucet and the cabinet. The only reason I would opt for a wall mounted cabinet is if you couldn't insert a recessed cabinet due to plumbing within the wall. I was going to place a wall mounted medicine cabinet in our guest BR since we couldn't do a recessed version due to pipes running between the wall but when I went to hang the cabinet realized that it projected too far from the wall. We have a very small pedestal sink in that BR and when you would stand at the sink your head would be quite close to the front of the cabinet.

Thank you all for your replies. There are some lovely bathrooms there and no one has said that they regret having a wall mount instead of a recessed cabinet. One interesting point is about the cabinet's being closer with the wall mount (we are not tall people) and another helpful comment is about placing the sconces, which is what we've installed wiring for. The width of the bathroom as you face the cabinets is about 7 feet to the "pony wall" (short wall) you see on the right. The tub will be to the right of that. (Above the pony wall will be a glass block partition.) The cabinet area consists of 24-inch upper and lower cabinets on the left (the upper is 7" deep, the lower 16"), then a 36-inch wide, 21" deep base cabinet for the sink t, then a 27" base cabinet for the makeup area that is again 16" deep. The medicine cabinet will be centered over the sink. We were thinking of a 24" cabinet, but we tend to like a single mirror so as to avoid a seam, so maybe we will have to go with 20" wide. Any more thoughts would be most welcome. A line drawing of this bathroom can be seen by clicking the link below. The left rectangle represents the area where the medicine cabinet would go. I don't think we'll have a mirror over the makeup area: I'm trying to get a custom flip-up top with a mirror inside. Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Annette, Thank you for the feedback. I think you are right that I don't have to keep all the mirrors the same. This is good timing as I came back from my pre-drywall walkthrough and it looks like builder forgot to frame out and make space for the medicine cabinet style mirrors in the bathroom! I am trying to get that fixed as best as I can, but the middle mirror cannot be recessed into the wall as their is a main structural beam there. Because of that, I am going to go ahead and replace the middle medicine cabinet with a standard mirror and have it come out the same thickness as the recessed mirrors to match. I found a 3'x5' mirror for $50 for cheap at Lowe's that will work I think. It's a bit taller than I might like, but I am playing around with the height. This would solve the issue of not having mirror low enough. I can set the mirror 3" above as some of the sample images you should me or a bit higher, but I think this may all work out in the end for the better. My house will be in a Contemporary /Transitional style. Thank you!