Thursday, August 13, 2015

Basement Bath Mirror

I am pretty excited about our latest finished project for the basement bathroom: A Mirror!
I'm proud of Jeff for doing such a good job on what is really his first solo woodworking project (excluding the rustic workbench out in the garage). He used the same router bit to finish the edges as we used to build the linen cabinet doors which matched the existing cabinetry in the house.

For this project, I wanted a beveled mirror to match all the other mirrors in the house so I bought this relatively cheap plastic framed mirror from Walmart. Yuck, that plastic frame is awful. Do folks actually hang these as is in their houses?
It was actually a bit of a trial to remove the mirror from the frame without breaking it. It was mounted really well in that frame, with glue and everything.
We dug around our garage for narrow fir scraps and we had plenty. Most of our fir is a little thin though because it has all been planed, so it was quite a challenge for Jeff to get the depth of the bit set up correctly. There was not a lot of room for error.
This particular router bit was designed for cabinet doors, so the channel in the wood was a little thick for the mirror. It sort of wiggled back and forth, so Jeff made these tiny pieces of wood that fit in the channel and locked the mirror in place.
It was a bit of a challenge to get the rails and stiles sized exactly right. It took a few trial fits...
...but Jeff eventually got it just right and then glued the mirror.
I stained and shellacked it over the last couple of days and we got it hung up tonight. I'm really happy with how it looks.
We've also started receiving hardware I ordered. Tonight Jeff hung up the towel ring. After I paint the door, we're going to put a couple hooks on the back of it for hanging towels. We're still waiting for the mission register covers I've ordered.

This bathroom is almost ready to be our primary bathroom temporarily while we remodel the upstairs bathroom starting in a few weeks. We've been spending a lot of time the last few days running around looking at floor tile and shower doors and scheduling appointments for estimates. I do believe we're getting close to being ready to demo.

4 comments:

  1. You can get beveled mirrors at Coast Mirror, any size and bevel, anything you want.

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    1. Thanks donaleen, I didn't know about them. I'll look them up to replace the mirror in the medicine cabinet in the master bath.

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  2. I tried to buy some plain beveled glass and was absolutely shocked at the price. Your re use of the Walmart mirror is a great idea and your husband did a fantastic job on the frame.

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    1. Yeah, I've been surprised how much mirrors cost in the stores. Often I buy stuff like this for really cheap on craigslist. I watched craigslist for a while for a beveled mirror, but there just hasn't been any lately. The walmart mirror was the least expensive new mirror I found. I'm really happy with how this project turned out.

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