DIY Rustic Fence Picket Framed Mirror

Hey! Hey! It’s time for another installment of the Monthly DIY Challenge, where a few of my favorite blogging buddies and I create cool projects based on the same theme or object! This month our theme/object is scrap wood. How perfect! If there’s anything I have an abundance of, it would be scrap wood. Ha!

I must have a thing for mirrors because I made one for the last challenge and I’ve created for this one as well. BUT they are totally different in style. And can you really ever have too many mirrors in your home? I say no, you can’t. I just love how they bounce light around and make the space feel bigger.

We had some unused fence pickets laying in the garage from when we repaired a few spots on our fence, as well as a spare bathroom mirror. I stumbled upon this gorgeous entryway on Pinterest one day and instantly knew I had to create my own ginormous rustic looking mirror for my entry. By the way, there are big things happening in there right now. I am so excited to share everything with you!

Alrighty, let’s get down to business! This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy. First I measured my mirror and cut the pickets to size. I mitered the corners and then pocket holed the joints together using 1-inch pocket hole screws.

I wanted to get rid of that orange wood so I tried staining it with strong coffee. I thought to myself, “Hey, coffee is brown. It will make a great brown stain!”. Nope. It totally brought out the orange even more. (Don’t laugh at my messy kitchen.)

I know that you can age fence pickets with a mixture of baking soda and water (one part baking soda to five parts water) so I decided to try that out. I mixed up the solution and slathered it on with  paint brush. It was going on 11:00 pm and I was getting tired so I called it a night and decided to mess around with it in the morning. The baking soda mixture definitely toned things back down and gave me that weathered, natural wood look I was going for.

The mirror is super heavy and there was no way I was trusting it to be glued to and hung by the frame. So I decided to hang the mirror from clips and then place the frame over it. I measure my wall and used a stud finder to locate the, um, studs. Then I screwed the clips onto the wall…..

…..and hung the mirror. There are three clips on the bottom and two on the top (the pic only shows one because I got a little too antsy with my photo taking). I used a screw on each side to keep the mirror from slipping in either direction. Which was pointless because that baby is snug in those top and bottom clips.

After a good cleaning with some Windex I was ready to hang my frame! The frame hangs from a wire that is attached to the backside with D-rings.

And here is the finished product!

The photos don’t show the true color of the frame. Our entryway is pretty dark so I had to crank up the brightness while editing the photos and lost a bit of the grey tones. It looks a bit more weathered in real life. I’m really digging the raw and rustic look of the wood. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual sanded and polished to perfection finish.

As always, be sure to check out the crazy good creations that my pals made! And thanks so much for following along with out little challenge each month.