Thanks. I thought about at least cutting the drywall to save a little on the depth. That will also let us see what is there and if we can recess it anymore than that.

I think, even though it is a weight bearing wall it can be recessed so long as wiring doesn't interfere. You need to frame it in with a header, much like a window in an outer wall. And depending on the wiring situation, if it isn't right across the centre, it maybe could be moved above or below the mirror opening. Just a thought.

We are just re-doing our bathroom and had a surface mounted 36 inch medicine cabinet until now. We are gutted to the studs and found the vanity wall to be a 6 inch wall because the stack is in that wall. So our contractor just cut into the 2 x 6's part way (about 4 inches) and framed it In with a 2 x 4 header and frame. We just bought a 40 inch Kohler tri view cabinet. It has soft close doors and seems like a very nice one but it was not cheap. We didn't find many 40 inch tri view ones so chose to pay for the Kohler brand. It does have mirror inside and out and a sliding magnifying mirror inside the centre door, which might come in handy since the mirror will be farther away now with being inset.

Silken1 - thank you! That makes sense and is encouraging. The light is centered above the vanity so wiring is likely centered behind the wall. I am ok with opening that whole wall so that might give us more options.

The Kohler tri-view is one I have considered. It would be the cheapest option of what I have looked at.

I don't know if framed or unframed would look better and then wood to match the vanity or metal to match the light. I found some frames that you can install around a mirror or medicine cabinet if we go with the Kohler one.

I thought we would have wiring right behind our old vanity too as it was centred and the light above centred to it. But the wiring was higher in the wall more in line with light so it wasn't even in the way. We are considering framing ours. We think we might order a length of narrower crown moulding to match our vanity and DH will use it to make a frame around the medicine cabinet, if we decide it is the look we want.

Silken1 - thank you. Dealing with an older home can be a challenge. The house was built in the mid 60s and great construction but sometimes retrofitting new products is an issue with manufacturing changes etc. Even something as simple as changing the recessed closet hardware was an adventure to find some that fit.

I hear ya! Ours was built in 1956 and is a slab, which around here is very uncommon. We had to move our tub drain and wanted to move the toilet over a bit too. We have hot water heat in the floors so they had to be careful not to hit any pipes and since the tub was on an outside wall, they had to jackhammer thru nearly 16 inches of concrete to get at the old P trap etc. who knew the floor would be 16 inches thick! So that took a couple days longer than planned.