Scavenger Chic

Shutter Frame Mirror

• By Joan
• November 5, 2018
• 2 Comments

When my neighbor brought over a couple of old shutters that used to hang on her parents house I immediately set to work creating a magazine rack and a lamp.  

Seems reasonable, but I already had about 5 shutters making their home under my deck that have been there for 2 years.  I had gotten a pile of mismatched shutters from the salvage yard back in September of 2016 and since then I have done a ton of shutter projects, but those last 5 shutters just haven’t spoken to me. By now, I’m pretty sure I have a bunch of critters taking up residence in the shutters who are sure that they’ve found their permanent home.

So here I’m just waiting for inspiration to strike and boom, neighbor brings over 2 shutters and 2 weeks later I have 3 projects.

After finishing the lamp I was left with a beautifully aged frame.  And when you have a beautifully aged shutter frame you can’t just throw it away because you took away all it’s innards.

What better use for this old shutter than to turn it into a frame for a mirror.

I found the perfect sized frameless mirror at Target.  Combine the mirror with my shutter frame and quarter round that was ripped out of my kitchen, and I had everything I needed.

The two ends of the shutter were different widths.  Normally I would cut down the longer end to match the shorter but my mirror was exactly the same length as my shutter.  If I wanted matching ends, I would have to build up the shorter end.

Luckily I still had a few pieces leftover from the magazine shutter project so that the shorter end could be lengthened.  Cut to fit, glue and nail. To make the addition look like it belongs , try to have your wood grains go in the same directions as the shutter.

Cut out the middle piece with a jigsaw.

Cut the quarter round with a miter saw to fit inside the frame and nail into place.

Fill in any gaps from the addition with wood filler.

I had to get rid of the remains of the rusty hinges on the back side so they wouldn’t stick into the wall.

Any  noticeable screwdriver groove had long since rusted over so I had to once again get out my handy dandy Dremel Rotary Tool . With the cutting tool, I made a crevice deep enough to insert a flat head screwdriver.  This technique also works great if you’ve stripped the head of the screw.

If you had to add an addition on your shutter like I did, try to match  the paint color as closely as possible or consider repainting the entire shutter.

I won’t go into details on my paint job because the chance of you having the exact same color  shutter as mine with the same aging is pretty slim.  Let’s just say I used dark green, black, tan, white and vintage wax.  For some reason the finish came out pretty close.

Use Mirror Clips to attach the mirror to the back of the shutter frame.

If possible, I like to keep any existing hardware intact to show that it is a genuine old shutter.

The shutter is currently hanging in #2 son’s foyer.  A great place to check that everything is in place before heading out the door.

Would you believe I have a third project from the same shutter?  But Joan, you may say, there is nothing left…oh, but you would be wrong.

Stay tuned and stay inspired.

You can find my full gallery of shutter projects here.

Shared at Metamorphosis Monday,

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