I would use very fine sandpaper or even very fine steel wool. Then just paint the rusted area with a little Rustoleum spray paint.

If you've seen my other questions regarding bathrooms in a house we have a contract on, then you'll know they need help, this one is specific to medicine cabinets. First, the 1/2 bath has one and I honestly don't think it's needed in a half bath - I want to remove it and being it's recessed in the wall, need some ideas other than the obvious shelf and cover it up any ideas? You can't really see it here, but it's on the wall opposite from the wall of the vanity and toilet - you can sorta see it between the door opening. The master bathroom has one too and it's on the left side of the sink, between the door and the back wall the sink is on, not a convenient place and again, not needed. Vanity is large enough that we can put our stuff as we have it now, in drawers. Currently, our MBR doesn't have a medicing cabinet either. I'll keep the one in the 2nd bathroom, but it's ugly (can't remember the location of it though) - is there anything new out in vanities, good place to look for something than the usually ugly box? Thanks for some suggestions!

I am really not trying to be recalcitrant, and I know I am coming off as argumentative, but I am not trying to be purposely so. People are always entitled to do what they wish with a house, of course. But in the process of that, it would be nice if somehow the house retained some of its' original character, or at least alluded to its' character in the remodel. But a builder who is flipping a house doesn't really care about anything except their profit margin, and most people aren't particularly well educated about architecture or design. And why should they be? Except it's part of why people remodel houses that end up sort of fragmented and soulless, no matter how trendy they may look when first done. Many people have the assumption that people who don't redecorate to current trends have neglected infrastructure. You can tell the difference between a well maintained time capsule and a house that's been neglected if they want to, if they care enough to look. I had a client who was trying to sell her father's house at the same time we were trying to sell my father's. She asked my advice about pricing and I said price it at x below what a well-maintained house is selling it for in your neighborhood and market it toward contractors. The house completely neglected. She was furious with me because she saw her house and my house as the same. I grew up in a very well maintained time capsule. My dad had a new 25+ year roof and exterior painting done at the age of 89. She could not see the difference. My father's sold without even being fully listed at close to asking in a market where houses linger for years. Her father's sold 14 months later at less than I told her to list it at to a contractor that gutted it, in a market where most houses sell in a month. That house needed to be gutted as you say. My father's didn't. The thing is being able to tell the difference and treating the houses differently, and that's where the problem is. They are all being treated the same. I have nothing against a house that has been fully remodeled in the interior, particularly if it was a distressed house, if it's done carefully and consistently. There are some beautifully renovated Federal and Greek Revival houses that are pure mid century on the interior. However, the architects and designers acknowledged the proportions and vocabulary of the original shell in a manner that worked with, not against the building. Some may argue that the charm is then gone. Maybe it is, maybe I am seeing a new type of charm because the renovation is 40-50 years old and I may have felt the house was ruined at the time. That's hard to say. I look at real estate on a national level every day or so, and what I see is a little different than you are suggesting above about people spending a lot of money for a house then wanting to do more to update it. I would say proportion wise, I see more expensive properties that have expensive but older interiors that have been left intact than I see middle of the road properties and perhaps even lower cost properties that have been left intact. I am not talking about just when properties change hands. Clearly whoever built the above house in 1959, and I am taking a guess that this house is probably still in the original owner's hands unless it was resold when it is new...clearly the house was expensive and the interior decoration was expensive, and because of those two factors, they maintained it as it was. In contrast, I see many more ordinary properties that have been remodeled piecemeal at different times with each little segment fully reflecting 1975 or 1987 or 2000 independently, each very distinct, with little regard to the house or the other rooms but with great regard what was in highest fashion at that particular point. In contrast socialites like Annenbergs, Brooke Astor and Nancy Pyne had rooms decorated in the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s and never redecorated them again. So I would say that it's probably middle market houses that end up losing more charm during remodeling, and there are probably a bunch of factors that play into that. (I am still not sure what you are trying to convey about taxes. I know a number of people who pay around $50,000 in property taxes because they live in large houses in areas with high property taxes, New Jersey, Connecticut, lake or waterfront properties, etc. I am not sure what that has to do with the interior of the house?)

As to options for color -- would likely stay with white. Is this a box slipped into the wall and the frame a part of that box? Have you considered recreating your medicine cabinet storage space in a cabinet above the toilet and just adding a large frame-less mirror behind / over you sink?