In this blog post, I will cover how I made this wooden mirror frame. It’s made from a solid oak kitchen worktop cutoff. The mirror is glued onto a thin piece of laminated board, which sits inside the frame. The back of the mirror frame is routered (but not using a router 😉) to ensure that the mirror backing sits flush with the frame.
THE PLAN
The idea for this mirror came about while trying to figure out what to do with a thin but long cutoff from a wooden kitchen worktop. The worktop was used as a top for my DIY bathroom vanity cabinet, and I thought it’d be lovely to use the cutoff to make something for the bathroom as it’d be a nice match to the top. A mirror seemed like a perfect idea as the old one was on a thin wall cabinet that had completely worn out and didn’t fit with the bathroom after it was decorated. So, I salvaged the mirror from the old cabinet and decided to make a frame for it using the oak cutoff.
The design for the mirror is incredibly simple—it’s just four pieces of wood glued together. There aren’t any fancy corner joining techniques. The tricky bit of the design came from the fact that I needed to get the mirror I had salvaged to sit inside the frame while the back remained flush. I decided the best way to achieve that was to router a thin strip around the back of the frame for the mirror to sit in.
MATERIALS & TOOLS REQUIRED
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Materials
Note that sizes will vary depending on your mirror size.
- wood for the mirror frame (I used an oak cutoff but you can use any planed wood)
- mirror
- piece of mdf, ply or board for the mirror back
- glue to stick mirror to the backing
- small screws to screw the backing to the frame for reinforcement
- wood glue
- stain/ varnish/ paint/ wax
Tools
- saw (I used a table saw but you can get away with a handsaw if you’re good with it)
- router (I used a circular saw + chisel and hammer instead)
- screwdriver for the small screws
- clamps for holding the frame together while the glue dries
- ruler
- pencil
STEP 1: CUTTING THE WOOD INTO LENGTHS
The mirror I had was attached to a slightly bigger piece of board backing so the first step for me was to cut my wood into the right lengths. If you have a mirror separate from your backing at this stage, cut the board/ ply/ mdf piece around 1cm bigger than the mirror all the way around. Then glue to mirror on in the center.
For me, I first had to cut the kitchen worktop cutoff to the correct thickness. I did this by passing my cutoff through a table saw a couple of times to get two wood lengths around 4cm wide and 2 cm thick.
Then, I measured the wood lengths against my mirror and cut them. I also cut them on the table saw, but you can easily use a handsaw for this. As my mirror is vertical, I decided to have the top and bottom frame pieces sit inside the side frame pieces.
STEP 2: ROUTER THE BACK OF THE MIRROR FRAME TO FIT THE BACKING BOARD FLUSH
The next step is to cut a groove into the back of the mirror frame so that the backing board can sit flush with the frame. I measured how much I needed to cut by holding the frame around the mirror in place and drawing a line on the frame. I also measured the thickness of the board to determine how deep to cut the groove.
Then, I put the mirror frame piece into a workbench and clamped it steady. I set a circular saw depth to the thickness of my mirror backing board and carefully cut the frame piece with my circular saw until I successfully cut the required groove width.
Note that the whole wood length needed to be routered for the top and bottom frame pieces. For the side pieces, they didn’t need to be routered fully. This was tricky because I was using a circular saw. To deal with it, I routered as much out as possible using the saw and then used a chisel and hammer to chisel out the corners gently. The result is not the neatest, but it does the job and you won’t see it on the back anyways.
STEP 3: GLUE THE MIRROR FRAME TOGETHER
Use wood glue to join the frame and the mirror backing. Clamp it together as much as you can to dry it. I don’t have super wide clamps, so I laid two super long pieces of wood next to the frame and clamped them down instead. The idea is that they will hold the frame together while it dries. I also put some weights on top of the frame to keep the mirror in place while it dries.
STEP 4: FINISH THE FRAME
To finish the frame, I screwed tiny screws into the backing board for extra reinforcement. My mirror is from an old cabinet, so I just salvaged the screws from there too. I then sanded the whole thing to make it super smooth and used Osmo Polyx Oil to protect it.
To hang it on the wall, I screwed some tiny picture hooks to the back, tied a string between them and hung the mirror by the string on a screw in a wall (it was left slightly sticking out).
THE RESULT
The result is a lovely solid oak framed mirror that cost absolutely nothing since I already had all the materials! It matches the bathroom vanity unit perfectly 😁
