9 dolla mirror!

Browsing the West Elm website I stumbled upon the perfect solution for my bare dining room wall, a long horizontal mirror (found here). I like that is was long and somewhat narrow, but I wasn't loving the super thin metal frame or the price tag.

Then I saw another West Elm gem (here).  I was digging the chunkier white frame, but the $399 price tag was a no go.

So instead we made our own.  For $9.  This is pretty much how every project in our house starts - I see something I love, and Michael figures out a way to DIY it for dirt cheap.  Michael realized the mirror dimensions I wanted would be perfectly adapted from a closet mirror.  It just so happens Craigslist in our area is chocked full of those mirrored closet doors, so we jumped in the car and picked one right up, for FREE!  Once we got it home we carefully pried the mirror off of the door, but we realized the dimensions were a bit off, and that the mirror had a small crack in the corner.  Womp-womp.  A quick trip to Lowe's for a glass cutter and we were back in business.  Michael cut the mirror to what I guessed would be a good size.  I wanted it to take up the majority of that wall so he held it up and I told him where to cut.  Then is was frame making time, which is Michael's domain.  He measured and cut mitered corners and routed in the center of each board to slip around the edge of the mirror.  

After the frame was glued and nailed together I let it dry overnight.  Then it was paint, dry, paint, dry, sand, paint.  Woot-woot!

Now, we just need to get it up on that wall!