Frame an Outdated Mirror

(As of July 2016, this post on how to frame an outdated mirror had been re-pinned on PINTEREST over 3,000 times. SO glad it’s helpful!)

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My husband and I spent one weekend recently working on a Pinterest project I fell in love with: we framed an outdated mirror. 

In our bathroom, we have two large, construction grade mirrors, and we framed them both for about thirty dollars.

I clicked on all the Pinterest sites that offered tutorials about this, but none gave enough information.  I corralled my husband into helping me, and we forged our way through, hitting some snags, but solving the issues.  Here’s our detailed pictorial, just in case you like this idea too.

Prepping the frame:

1.  MEASURE all sides of your mirror.  Choose the wood/molding you want to use as your frame.  We spent an hour at Home Depot considering the options – wide vs. narrow, mitered corners vs straight edges with corner pieces (our final choice.)

2.  PURCHASE the wood you need.  At Home Depot, a saw is available to cut approximately what you need, so you aren’t paying for extra length.  At home, with a miter box, we finalized the cut edges of the four strips of molding that would line the sides of the mirror.

3.  MAKE NOTCHES.  If you have mirror clips (we have the flat metal ones), you will need to notch out a chunk of wood on the back of your molding to accommodate that feature. (You can skip this step If your mirror is glued directly to the wall.)

Hold the molding perpendicular to the mirror clip exactly where it will go.

Draw the area that will need to be removed. Make it a little bigger than the clip, so there is some fudge room later.

If you have a router, notch out the drawn area. If you do not (we don’t), it’s still easy to create the notch. Simply saw several small notches close together within the blocked off space.

Once the molding is cut, scrape out the notched pieces with a chisel or screwdriver. They pop right out.

Your finished notch will look like this from the bottom.

This creates a space for the mirror clip.  We needed to create four notches, two in the top piece and two in the bottom piece.

Painting, Mounting, and Finishing:

1.  PAINT all of your wood pieces.  I used a white latex enamel for easy long-term cleaning.  In addition, be sure to paint the back edges of all your wood pieces, as these will show in the reflection of the mirror.

2.  DRY-MOUNT.  Once the pieces are properly cut and painted, dry-mount the frame, meaning hold everything in place to check the fit.  We put double-sided tape on the back of our corner pieces to temporarily hold them while we placed the side boards. You can see the faint outline of the tape here.

During our fitting, we discovered one piece was a tad too long, so we trimmed it down. Once you know the pieces fit well, mark on the back which piece goes where, because after they’re off the mirror, you might not remember where they go.  (We got confused a few times.)

3.   ATTACH your pieces to the mirror.  This is the adhesive we used.

In most of the tutorials I watched from Pinterest, people used Liquid Nails. We started with that, but it did not grab the mirror within a minute. The first piece we applied with Liquid Nails fell off.  Maybe it was our technique, or we didn’t apply enough…it just didn’t work for us.  It might for you.

Power Grab held beautifully.

We glued the bottom strip of molding first, centering it and making sure it was level (use a level.)  With each piece added, we quickly checked the rest of them, assuring the fit was maintained.

After all the pieces were attached, we noticed the top right molding bowed out a bit. We clamped this piece tight. Because our mirror is not glued to the wall (but held with clips), the small space between the mirror and wall allowed us to attach a clamp. I decided our mirror is probably bowed in this area, hence it needed some help holding the wood. We taped the top pieces in place for added security.

We let everything dry overnight.

4.   CAULK the cracks. No matter how straight your cut edges are, some cracks will be visible. Use a thin caulk bead.  You can always add more, but you don’t want a gloppy look.  These three pics show a pre-caulked crack on the left, the caulk bead, and the finished look.

I used a damp index finger to smooth out the line, wiping the excess caulk on a paper towel.

5.  CLEAN UP.  Once the caulk is dry, scrape off any glue residue from the mirror with a straight-edge razor.  One strip of wood slid when we attached it, so we had some goop to remove. I cleaned off the last smears and fingerprints with Goof-off.

The twenty-two year old mirror edges that formerly looked like this…

…now look like this.

Because we’re so happy with the results, we’re going to update the other mirrors in the house.

This is an easy makeover and, most of all, relatively inexpensive. 

I used paint and caulk we already had, which helped.

A great weekend project.  Happy framing!

 

 

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