The only way I know of to have both the fan and light to come on together would be to wire them together to one switch or timer. I find it very easy with the stacked switch to hit both buttons when I enter the bathroom; I turn off the light when I'm done in the shower, and the fan turns itself off after an hour (or whatever time you set it to). If you wired them together to a single switch, then you wouldn't run the fan after the shower, which is good for drawing moisture out of the room. If you wired them together to a single timer, then they'd both be on for an hour until the timer shuts them off, wasting power on the light for an hour every day. (Depending who's using the bathroom, you might also have someone turn off the light, not realizing it's also turning off the fan.) I'm sure someone with an electronics background could build a box you could stash where the wires run in the attic with a relay that turns the light on when the fan goes on (or visa versa), but doesn't turn both off when the switch goes off for either one. But I'm not aware of a readily-available commercial switch that does this. -- Eric

My parents house is like that, but there’s a wall with a wide doorway into the area with the vanity, so it’s open but also easy to close off by just putting a curtain rail up. It’s also oriented to the room such that if you only use enough light at the vanity to wash your hands for a midnight potty run, it really isn’t enough to bother someone in the bed if you place the bed sensibly. Getting ready in the morning would be trickier if you needed to do makeup and so on so needed proper lighting, so that’s where a screen or a curtain would come in.

Hello! I'm really tight for space with my vanity - the vanity is 32" wide (33" with counter) and will be centered in an area between a wall and the toilet - area is approx 39" wide at it's widest. How can I put a mirror above the vanity and allow for side lights? Some of the side lights that I have found are only 5" wide and I can do a mirror that is 22-24" wide... Will this work? Thanks everyone - I'm going crazy trying to figure this out...

Here is your dilemma. if you take down those fixtures there will be two holes in the mirror, that being said, they will be up high and most likely off center. So, to get new lighting that is not stuck in the corners, and covers the holes behind it, might be next to impossible unless you run a thick bar that covers the space. But some times back in the day they only drug wire over and did not put in actual junction boxes, so the bringing it to code might be another issue. 1. take one of the lights down and see what is going on 2. probably have to replace the mirror and move the electrical location.