We bought the vanity light and cabinet for our small bathroom, both of which were the same width. We were planning to move the lights up a little bit to make more room for the cabinet since the cabinet we liked happened to be a surface mount. We found out today that the wires behind the current vanity light is strung pretty tightly to the main junction box and there is no wiggle room to move it up...and our mirror won't fit (the door will ram into the faucet). All the mirrors that are shorter in height are also shorter in width, which leaves out vanity lights wider than the cabinet. The one we ended up choosing is about 9" shorter than the lights. We got the lights for dirt cheap during the President's day sale and DH does not want to return that to buy a smaller light for twice the price. So that light is staying. Is this something that will just bother me? It will be nice having 3 lights as opposed to 2 since that will be our only light source aside from the one light inside the tub area.

We stayed in a lovely inn that had a lighted vanity mirror in the bathroom that I absolutely loved. Thinking I would try to copy this in our own home, I took careful note of the other lighting in the room. There were no pendants, and the only other lighting was overhead recessed lighting in the shower and toilet area, which were separated from the vanity space. I found the lighted mirror more than enough lighting for applying makeup and husband’s shaving requirements, and personally wouldn’t add more. You might consider overhead recessed lighting by your toilet and shower, however.

Without photos, I am going to semi-guess here, but if you have recessed in the bathroom, you probably could go with sconces on the full length mirror, they will provide the proper fill light for applying makeup or shaving. Overhead light creates shadowing on the face. If you decide to do this, then the sconces must be selected, placement on the wall determined and the mirror laser cut for the opening to the electrical box. You cannot install sconces on a mirror after the fact, you will crack the mirror. Builder should understand this, but discuss it in detail.

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.