Mirror Frame 1
It is finally time to post some information about a project, after about a month and a half since the last one! Today we will be looking at the design and construction of a custom mirror frame that I am building for me and my wife. I have had a 48″ x 32″ mirror sitting in the corner of the shop for a couple of years now and for whatever reason have never done anything with it. Well, it is time to change that!
Whenever I design something for my home it can be a paralyzing experience. My mind runs absolutely wild with possibilities. Nothing is off limits! I love the feeling of letting my design and creative juices flow. I used to see how wild and crazy of a design I could come up with, how many curves, angles, and colors I could throw into one piece. Lately, though, I have really been forcing myself to relax and be more deliberate during the designing process. I try to focus on the piece as a whole, rather than seeing it as a bunch of separate pieces, focusing more on how patterns flow from one to another, how the size, shape, color, and composition of the parts fit into the overall feel of the end product.
With that being said, let us tackle the mirror frame and look at some of the design aspects we need to keep in mind.
When designing this mirror frame I had two criteria in mind to follow. The first was to make the frame large. I wanted this mirror to be a focal point and a center piece for our mid sized room. Many of the design philosophies state that if you add a large mirror in a small room, it will make the room feel larger. Well, that is what I am going for in this case. The overall dimensions of the mirror should be somewhere around 54″ wide and 38″ high! An impressively large size in my opinion.
The second criteria was to make the design unique enough to be eye catching, but timeless enough that it would work in many different styles of rooms. There is nothing worse than designing a piece of furniture for a certain room, then changing the rooms style, and having to replace the piece of furniture because it no longer fits. There is a time and a place for a very unique piece of furniture, but this was not going to be that place or that time.
So, time to look at some of the design ideas I contemplated.
Design #1
This design is pretty timeless and has nicely sized rails and stiles, but I rejected it because it just seemed a little to pedestrian.
Design #2
The same design as above, but took the tennons all the way through the stile. Eventually scrapped this idea because the width of the tennon seemed to clash with the width of the rail.
Design #3
The same design as above, except I made the rails continue past the stiles about an inch or so. I really liked this design initially, and had more or less settled on this one, but after a day of mulling over it, I decided it wasn’t striking enough.
Design #4
As the Biblical parable says, “As a dog returns to its vomit…so will Jared Patchin return to using many different woods within the same project.” OK, maybe that’s not exact how it goes, but that sure is how I felt like when I designed this frame. It seems that no matter how hard I try, I am always mixing different colored woods within the same project. Not that there is anything wrong with that, to borrow a line from Seinfeld, but it just seems like that is my modus operandi. I actually forced myself into only using one species of wood on my latest custom piece and it was quite refreshing because it made me focus on other design aspects rather than just color.
So, back to the frame. I am envisioning using Walnut for the rails and stiles and Mahogany for the corner blocks. The corner blocks will be a bit wider and a bit thicker than the rails and stiles, adding a nice contrast to the frame.
Design #5
Once again, a sign of my utter lack of self control. Here I go adding some small Fiddleback Maple details.
Design #6
Deciding that less was more, I removed some of the Maple accents.
Design #7
Deciding that the accent madness needed to stop, I ended at this design. I am pretty much settled on the framework being made from Walnut and Mahogany and the contrasting sizes of the framework and the corners, but the placement, or even the inclusion, of the Maple accents is still up in the air.
April 14th, 2011 at 2:27 am
I like #6 the best. I would buy #6 and after having hung it on the wall, it would drive me insane because of the direction of the maple accents. I would disappointedly return it to the store and buy #7 because of its balance and symmetry. Doggone OCD.