Hey y’all, I thought I’d give some tips on the construction on the mirror for any of you guys who will most likely be building it. First of all the actual dimensions of the mirror are not quite the even 27 by 44.5. They are actually 44 and 1/8 by 26 and 9/16. Now, I would still cut the base board everything is glued onto with the given 27×44.5 because what you can do is just center the mirror pieces and lattice work in the middle of the back board. This leaves you with about 3/16 of an inch around the perimeter which for me looked very cool because, essentially, I created a little step down bevel without using any kind of router.

The second thing I must mention is that make sure you place the layout before clamping with glue because even though you will buy the 8 inch mirror they will not all be exactly 8×8 inches. This means you might have to adjust of your spacing with the longitudinal lattice to accommodate any mirror size discrepancies. As mentioned in the main blog post by Laura, I would definitely recommend placing and gluing all of the pieces before painting for two reasons. One, to save on paint. I had to spray paint a few extra coats for paint that had come off during the assembly portion. Second, because I like wood glue better than Liquid nails. I think with would glue you get a better bond between the wood without some of the gobiness (if that’s a word) that you sometimes get with liquid nails.

Finally, if you have a table saw to cut and assemble the backboard pieces, awesome. If you don’t, that’s totally fine, you can use a circular saw. But if you’re like me, I can’t cut the best straight lines with a circular saw. So I’ll tell you how I made some modifications to make the long cuts that need to be perfectly straight without using a table saw, but your trusty circular saw.

First, of course, you need to measure the length so you know where your main cutting line is. For example, if you have 48 inches and you need to cut it down to 44.5, measure the 44.5 and draw your line with either a straight edge or level. (of if you’re cutting the 3 inch piece, measure the 3 inches off of the top)

So now that I have my straight cutting line drawn out, it’s time to make my guideline. To do this, you must measure above your cutting line the distance from the saw blade on the saw to the edge of the circular saw guard. You want to do this because you have to remember that the saw blade has a width of about 3/16 of an inch or so, so if you cut straight down the middle, your final length be just short of what it needs to be. so measure the distance for the edge of the saw blade to the guard and then mark that measure above the cutting line. So if the distance for the saw to guard is 2 inches, I will mark 2 inches above my cutting line as seen below.

So know you can see that I have two lines. The cutting line, and the guide line. The next step is fairly easy. Take a 1×4 piece of wood and line it up against your guide line. You want to make sure this board is long enough to span the length you are cutting so there are no gaps where the saw could potentially deviate. Once it is lined up on your guide line carefully drill two pilot holes for 2 screws. It is very important not to drill to deep so as to puncture through to the front. And you’ll be able to feel the drill bit go from the guide board to the back board. Then just be cautious how deep you go because we aren’t drilling a hole, just enough to eventually hold the guide board in place. Once that is drilled, go ahead and screw in the anchor screws. But don’t screw them in all the way because again we don’t want to puncture through to the front. Keep in mind too that throughout this step make sure you are maintaining the guide board on your guide line. Finally, check to make sure it is straight and level.

Mine turned out nice and level and the picture above is nice because you can see my guide board is level on my guide line and I can see my cutting line very well. And you can check to make sure that your saw blade is cutting just to the outside of the cut line because of my measurements. This insures a most accurate cut. Finally, you’re ready to make the cut! After the cut just remove the guide board and viola…you have just made a cut with the accuracy of a table saw, while using a common hand-held circular saw.

The rest of the project as far as cuts is pretty straight forward. You can use a power miter saw, although for some of the lattice work the power miter saw as a bit to powerful and I had to use a standard miter box by hand. I think the project turned out well, and Laura loves it, which is most important of all! If you have any questions about the construction, feel free to comment!