The solid wood Parsons floor mirror from West Elm was the inspiration for the bathroom mirrors we built. After seeing it in person the quality of the workmanship did not justify the $500 price tag. So we set out to build our own!
We chose some nice pieces of Ash wood from a local lumberyard. While my husband and I are pretty handy, it helps to have a friend that actually know a thing or two about woodworking. Our great friend Bailey came to the rescue once again and helped me cut and piece together the wood frames.
Once the frames were built I sanded and stained them. But I didn’t like how the stain took to the Ash wood. It is a really hard wood and didn’t take the stain very well. So I re-sanded them and used the Japanese wood burning method called Shou Sugi Ban.
I used a blow torch to burn the wood. It took a number of passes to get it evenly burned.
We built two recessed cabinets between the studs in the walls. One for a medicine cabinet above the sink and another that would be covered by a full-length mirror.
Originally I had thought of hanging the mirrors on exposed barn-door tracks. Luckily my good friend was re-doing her bathroom around the same time and she came up with the brilliant idea of mounting the mirror above her sink on drawer sliders. This option was a much cleaner look. Having two barn door tracks in a small bathroom would have been too much. This way we now have extra storage that is discreetly hidden and our custom mirror frames get to be the star of the show!
xo
