Building Some Doors

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you aren’t fighting uphill battles!”

Doug said this yesterday, and it’s true. We crossed so many things off our To Do List this past weekend, and it’s so energizing.

We finished the shoe moulding around the base of the turret woodwork, and I mixed some stains and got the whole thing done. DONE. Complete. Ready for curtains and furniture to hide the whole thing. (Which is hilarious, because it’s true.)

Doug finished the shoe moulding around the base of the built-in wardrobe, and added some in to areas of the room that were missing the moulding to begin with.

And then, we got to MOVE ON from the woodwork!!!!

Long ago, I sketched out a design for the built-in wardrobe.

Initially, I wanted to use some type of architectural salvage for the upper doors, and my first thought was to use windows. But then, we found two antique picture frames at Small Town Salvage, and the plan changed. Because they were the perfect dimensions and they were SO BEAUTIFUL. I painted them white, to blend with the wardrobe.

I wanted to insert mirror into the frames / doors, so we took a relatively thin mirror that we had laying around, and cut it to fit!

Here’s the process to cutting glass, or a mirror. And I get an F- in video, because I filmed it in portrait mode. UGH. Sorry.

Next, we built a frame out of wood to serve as the structure for the door. This will be slightly wider than the frame, and the frame would attach to this. Much more stable than depending on an antique frame to continue to hold its structure as a door on its own!

To join the miters, we used both pocket holes and screws, and biscuits. Since the doors need to function, and they have some weight, not to mention mirror, we thought the more strength, the better!

Pocket holes going in!

Biscuit joinery being made!

The two together.

Always label your pieces when you’re moving and putting them together, so you don’t accidentally switch something around (which is shockingly easy to do!)

Done! Since we glued this, we needed to give it time to dry.

While that was drying, we cut a couple of pieces of 1/8″ mdf to create a backing for the mirror, and sprayed those black.

After the joints dried overnight, we attached the two frames together! So far, so good.

I’m so excited that something is going EXACTLY as planned!

Next, painting the lower frame, and a final coat of white paint on the antique frame! Which, I didn’t take pictures of. But I promise, it happened.

Next step was to put the mirror in, and in true “Let’s be cautious” form, we secured the mirror with both silicone, and glazing points.

Big goop of silicone in the corners, and some going along the sides!

The mirrors dropped in perfectly, of course!

Then, we used glazing points along the entire mirror – about 20 points per door. This mirror isn’t going ANYWHERE.

And, last step! I attached the backing to the back. This will protect the mirror form whatever’s in the wardrobe – I envisioned closing the door, and something poking into the back of the mirror and breaking, so this keeps it safe.

DONE!!!! Now, they just need to be hung up!

This post isn’t incredibly hilarious, and that’s okay, because NOTHING WENT WRONG! So nice for a change – I’m okay with something being easy and undramatic.