Another Wall Mounted Mirror (with clips) Frame.

 

I alluded to this nifty project in my ol' Dollar Store DIY Decor:  Beaded Towel Ring post a short moment ago.  Yes, it's another wall mounted mirror (with clips) frame.

Yay too, another in a lovely line of spiffy scrap wood undertakings!

I'm not going to profess this is earth-shattering or maybe even all that swanky, but I like it very much and it was a great way to not only a. dress up a naked mirror but also b. use up scrap wood.

See, not long ago, I blew up the basement closet and my door rolling table loaded with said scrap wood to clean things up, out, reorganize, and know what dang wood I have.  I have too much.  I know that sounds blasphemous but, I need to thin the herd.

As very well evidenced by offloading alllll the wood in that rolling table thingie.  Goodness.  How did I get here?!

I went so far as to get a Bora Lumber Storage Rack* so that I could see with mine own two eyeballs what the heck has been amassing all this time.

After I bought that, and weeks later, got it up on the wall, I saw a TikTok of one I could've quite easily made, probably from scrap wood.  

Of course, right?!

Anyway, amazingly, the Bora rack is up!  Even better?  Holding tight!  Thank goodness.  It's got a lot of sh*t on it.  Well, no not sh*t, I've got some good stuff.

Anywhoooo, yes, so now that I know what's around, pressure's on to make things.  Hence, another wall mounted mirror (with clips) frame.

Having mentioned before, Finn's bath time bathroom is, well, not visually pleasing.  It's utilitarian which of course is very important but it's drab and boring.  I'm not cool with drab and boring.

Right, so let's dress up an uneventful mirror even though it doesn't really require it.  Finn deserves it, even if he'll shrug his big cutie shoulders with an eh whatev's, let's just get this rude bath thing over with already.

What's the point of all this, really?  Not necessarily to wow you with a design but to show you that you can unlock scrap wood's potential in a myriad of fun, cool ways.  To inspire you, ultimately.  Encourage you to look at scrap wood, and everything, in a different light.

Rifling through that scrap wood stash, magically I came across just big enough pieces of matching one by two to accomplish this on-a-whim, no-plan, no-design-direction idea.

 

What ensued was a circus of me holding up pieces of wood around the mirror, lots of head tilting (having German Shepherds, you learn), pacing around, and oh, more holding up of wood pieces.

Finally I decided on a wall mounted mirror (with clips) frame direction.  Pretty simple, nothing extravagant, merely two verticals and two horizontals plus a teensy dash of flavor.

One piece of wood for the vertical was already the perfect length somehow, who knows how but I'll take it, so I trimmed the other to match.  The idea was for them to be longer than the mirror a slight bit for design-y visual interest.

Next, the two horizontal pieces to hide the dreaded clips.

Huh.  Appears enough time passed between the start and finish that I forgot this was my original design.  Oops.

Now, rather than digging into wood to hide the mirror clips, I glued on mini bits of other scrap wood for horizontals to sit proud of them.

Yep, this is not the bottom piece I ended up with.  Doh!  Ah well!

Which, I used wood lath for since, man, I still have plenty from the hall bathroom wall and the laundry utility tub sink cover-up oh and those wood lath planters....and surely more.

This of course created another design dilemma, namely dust and dirt getting behind.  I'm zero interested in constantly removing the frame from the wall to clean up back there, nuh uh, nope.

But, there was a deep enough gap between the mirror and my nifty new frame, I kinda didn't care.

Measuring up a quarter of an inch from the outside edges on the mini scrap bits, I then glued* the wood lath on and clamped.*  Why the quarter inch?  A hint of pizazz; it needed a third element.

Heh, yep!  Here's the design I ended up with, haha.

Mmmk, after everything dried and set up, yes I know I didn't use any fasteners, I'm hoping for the best, it was time to figure out how to hang the new wall mounted mirror (with clips) frame.

Rather than diddle around, I went straight for my go-to keyhole brackets.*  And rather than making a giant loud mess with my palm router* on a thin edge, I used a monster grippy paddle bit* (dammit, now I need the Diablo ones.......!!) that has a drill bit point, a recent procurement, to make holes.

Note on those monster grippy paddle bits, whooooo doggie, once they catch and dig into the wood, hold on tight because they want to go go go.  Be careful!

And in the exact same way as hanging my 99 Cent Shelf,  I stretched painters tape* tightly across the brackets, marked where the holes were, and stuck the tape on the wall to drill out the wall holes.  Make sure to mark the top side of the tape to avoid befuddlement!

Found a stud and also used a screw-in wall anchor, er, self-drilling wall anchor* on the other side, sank some drywall screws, and hung this puppy up.

It appears the wood was oh so mildly, unnoticeably twisty so I used some clear grippy double sided tape* to tack the bottom in place.  I'll pay for that judgment call later.

Voilá!

I did opt to leave the mirror frame as bare wood for now but this of course could be painted or stained, or charred, or pretty much whatever your heart desires.

So there we have it my friends, another wall mounted mirror (with clips) frame.  Tada!

What do you think?  Has this inspired you to get at your stash of DIY supplies lying around?  Hit that scrap wood pile?  Yes?  I hope so!

No?  Dang it.  If not, peruse around, hopefully something will spark!

Honestly though?  Once it was up and I took a few steps back, I was rather proud and excited about it.

Update on the Big Boy Finn.  As I sit here tip-typing away, I'm comprehensively drained.  Last week we had some, um, rear-end issues that were supremely stressful with scary possibilities but are now resolved with no bad news.  It's chemo pill week this week and he's also on an antibiotic, all of which is probably a lot for his delicate system.  Sigh.

Overall, he's good.  Every day has a stress though, a million questions with few answers, feelings of being at sea.  It's a tough go for me, and for Mike, with near zero project-me-time but we're trying to do our very very best for him.  

Every night after dinner, dessert, Mike and I zoned out on the couch, Finn’s new thing is to lay across the cushions next to me for soft, sweet love pets.  Exactly as he did his very first few days with us.    .....I know.

Cancer is a nightmare.

*The Bora Lumber Storage Rack, PC Universal Glue, keyhole brackets, self-drilling wall anchors, and heavy duty double sided tape are Amazon affiliate links.  The clamps, palm routers, and paddle bits are Home Depot affiliate links.  The painters tape is a Lowes affiliate link.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.