I agree with Errant. One large mirror spanning the vanity. I think most people do center themselves over the sink and single mirrors wouldn't be as well placed. I'm not that concerned with the appearance of balance. It's all well and good to have sconces out on the edges, but what about the inside of the face? I have a 60" vanity with a 5-light fixture above. Currently I have 5 40W bulbs and the light (200W) is perfect. BTW, I went with a framed mirror (GW peer pressure) over my vanity and I think they're overrated. I wish I'd gotten a nice unframed beveled mirror the length of my vanity. I may even do that in the near future. Edited to add: I got the wattage wrong in my original post. It's 40 NOT 50w per bulb. So actually 200w total in my fixture is a perfect amount of light for my 5x10 bathroom. This post was edited by linelle on Fri, Feb 6, 15 at 14:42

In case Jenn gets notifications on this thread, I have a similar problem. I wanted to use sconces but think there is not enough room so I think we might need to use a bathroom bar. How is the lighting you are receiving from the lighting? Are the shadows impossible? Troubling? Minimal? Thanks...should you see this.

Thanks to both of you for your comments. We are just in the process of making a plan so it might be hard to visualize with an existing bathroom photo. However, we also saw a number of examples on houzz where the mirror was just slightly wider than the sink (we plan to use a vessel sink) so if we go with a much narrower mirror then we believe we can fit a sconce on either side of the mirror. Thanks again for quick replies!

This post is timely for me because we've been talking about updating the kids' bathroom. We have a full length builder grade mirror now and that thing is always a mess! I don't know exactly what my kids do in there, but there are always splash marks and dried toothpaste on it. They have electric toothbrushes and those spray more than the standard/manual ones, but I think my teenagers are just messy. Good thing to know about the vanity height as well. My kids are 5'6" and 5'9" so they have to bend over quite a bit to wash their faces and we have the builder grade round bowl. I was considering just having the original vanity painted but will now get a new one so I can add some height.