A Helpmeet for Him: pallet wood mirror

In general, I am a copy cat. I can draw, but only if I am looking at the thing I want to draw. I am "creative", but hardly ever do I have an idea that is entirely my own. My favorite blog is younghouselove.com and in this blog they go house crashing. In a house crash they go to awesome houses and take pictures of everything they love, so that we the readers can drool over it with them. One of these house crashes had a mirror that I fell for. I'm a huge fan of mirrors. Dad always said that it's because I like to look at myself {true...}, but I like to imagine that I appreciate their other marvelous qualities. I enjoy the way they bounce light around a room. I like the way they make a room look endless. And yes, I like to look at myself. So, I got onto Craigslist and did exactly what this housecrashed couple did. I requested a HUGE mirror. I said I wanted a mirror that used to be a sliding closet door. {These closet doors aren't fashionable anymore, but they are still HUGE mirrors. Add a little frame, and -bam!- huge statement.} A couple weeks later, I got a reply. He said the mirror was 6'x2' and he wanted $20 for it. I have never seen a mirror that was taller than me for $20, and so I said, "Yes, please!" :)

The mirror was all kinds of filthy, but after a good scrub it was perfect again. Next step= Pallets. You know those wooden pallets that stores get shipments on? Yeah, we needed some of those for our frame. We asked around, and then brought two home. I went for the grayish colored weathered wood. Here's my gorgeous husband cutting them up on our front porch.

After they were cut off the pallet, we had to cut them to the right lengths with the right angles. I'd like to say I helped, but other than taking measurements and marking the boards, I did nothing. Here's Matthew's {circa 1940s} miter saw.

Old fashioned, but it did its job perfectly. Once we had all the pieces cut to frame {with a one inch over lap so the mirror wouldn't look too skinny} we placed the pieces around the edge of the mirror to see if they were fitting correctly.

So far, so good! Next, it was time to attach them. We had looked around at different things, and after much debate had decided to go with "sika universal" in a caulk gun. We brought the mirror into the kitchen and propped it up on two of those {very college} three drawer plastic containers. We clamped all the pieces into place and then {when it looked as perfect as slightly warped wood can look} we unclamped the pieces one at a time and glued them into place.