Coat Hook Mirror

You've seen these everywhere, right?

This one is from Target. It's called a "Pub Mirror" and it's $75.

Target's usually my go-to store for cute decorative items that cost a small fortune at the really fun stores like Pottery Barn or Pier One...

But $75 was too rich for my blood!

I had this all in my house - just across from the laundry room/garage entrance and it REALLY need something.

A coat hook mirror sounded perfect - especially since I obsessively check my teeth before I leave the house.

So I decided to make my own!

Here she is - turned out pretty cute, huh?

If you want to know how I did it, here's a quick tutorial.

I started with a $5 door mirror from target, a 1x4 and a 1x2 from the Home Depot (less than $3 for both pieces of wood) a can of Canyon Black Rustoleum spray paint and 5 hooks - also from the Home Depot.

The boards were to frame the mirror.

I cut the 1x2 into three pieces - two short ones for the sides (mine were about 13") and one long one for the top (mine was about 59 inches.)

I cut the 1x4 to fit along the bottom.

Then I sanded them and gave them a couple of coats of spray paint.

When the boards were dry I screwed the hooks into the 1x4. I eyeballed where I wanted the two end ones to be, then I measured to make sure the ones in between were evenly spaced.

Hubby picked the hooks up for me one night on his way home from work.

This is one of the things I love most about him.

I have called him and asked him to pick up the most random things for me on his way home...

lumber, paint, hardware, even sewing notions. He always says okay - asks just enough follow up questions to make sure he buys the right thing - and NEVER, EVER, EVER wants to know what it's for, what I'm doing now or how much "help" he's going to be required to give.

When he gets home he lets me show off whatever project I'm working on and acts excited about it. LOVE HIM.

Anyway, these are the hooks he chose and they are perfect. They were probably a bit more than I would have spent myself - but then again, he made sure they matched the rest of the hardware in the house (brushed silver) without me having to paint them - which was nice for a change. I think he spent $4 per hook, and he bought 5.

At this point I lay the mirror and it's frame out on the floor and realized I would need something to mount the whole thing on so that I could hang it on the wall. Duh.

Luckily I had a fairly large sheet of hardboard in the garage that was left over from the race track we built for the boys Birthday last month.

We cut it to size and mounted the mirror and frame using adhesive. Then we weighted it and let it dry overnight.

The next morning I covered the mirror with newspaper and blue table, removed the hooks and gave the whole thing one last coat of spray paint (the black of the mirror frame was not the same black as my wood frame.)

Once it was dry I put the hooks back on and used my staple gun to attatch wire to the back for hanging.

Here she is, hanging on the wall in all her glory!

Total cost:

Mirror - $5

Lumber - $3

Hooks - $20

Less than $30 TOTAL!

I already had the hardboard and the spray paint, but even if you had to buy those things they would be less than $10. Hardboard is CHEAP and one of my new favorite crafting staples :)