My wife and I bought this IKEA mirror years ago, but ever since we bought our house it's just been sitting in the closet. I've been wanting to use it in a build for awhile now, and finally got the chance to do it! I initially wasn't too thrilled by the design of this in Sketchup, but this console goes into a nook in our hallway, so I was limited by the space. But I think in the end, the actual product came out alright. Let me know what you think!
Check out the full build video below!
Affiliate links are used below. I get a small commission from sales made through them, at no extra cost to you 🙌
MATERIALS
Walnut Lumber
1/4” Walnut Plywood
STEP 1: breaking down plywood and edgebanding
Like all of my builds involving plywood, I first layout the pieces I'll need for the build and then break them down to their rough sizes using my tracksaw and table saw. Once that's done, I'll rip some thin hardwood strips for edgebanding. This is a great opportunity to use up all the long scraps laying around the shop! Then I'll glue the strips to the exposed edges of the plywood pieces. Since these pieces won't see much stress, I normally just leave them clamped up for an hour before I go back to flush things up with a hand plane and a flush trim saw.
STEP 2: angled partition
There are a lot of ways to put this case together, but the way that made most sense to me was to start by making the two horizontal shelves and the angled partition first, as one piece, and then work my way outward from there. In order to achieve the 45-deg angled partition, I set my table saw blade at 67.5-deg to cut a miter along both edges of the panel, as well as one edge along both of the horizontal shelves.
Next, I set the blade at 45-deg to cut a miter on the other end of the long horizontal shelf for connecting to the right side panel later. To glue the pieces together, I used some Dominoes to help to hold the pieces together while I performed some clamping gymnastics.
STEP 3: bottom and left panels
The next day, i started on the rest of the case by first ripping all of the boards to the same width. Then crosscut the bottom and left panels to size, leaving 45-deg miter ends on both. I laid out and cut a stop dado into the left side panel for receiving the angled partition assembly from the previous step. Finally, gluing the bottom and left side panels together.
At this point, I haven't cut the stop dado into the bottom panel yet because its position will be dependent on where the dado in the partition assembly will be. Check out the next step to see what I'm talking about.
STEP 4: joinery for angled partition assembly
There will be two stop dados cut into the angled assembly, one on each side for receiving the vertical partitions above and below. The position of the dados will start where the horizontal shelf meets the angular panel. Once all the joinery have been cut in the assembly, I did a quick dry fit by inserting it into the dado in the side panel cut earlier in order to determine the position of the dado on the bottom panel. Then just lined up my router to the layout lines to cut the stop dado into the bottom panel.
STEP 5: lower vertical partition and first glue-up
With the dado cut into the bottom panel, I could determine the height of the lower vertical partition. I cut that to size and glued it to the angled partition assembly first, then glued all of that to the bottom and side panels.
STEP 6: horizontal shelf
I actually rushed through the previous glue-up step and forgot to cut the dado into the lower vertical partition, which is needed for receiving the horizontal shelf. But luckily there was enough space for me to fit in a piece of MDF to use as a straight edge to cut the dado. If you're making this for yourself, don't forget to cut the dado first before gluing things up!
I did a dry fit of the horizontal shelf by sliding it into the dado cut into the lower vertical partition, which allows me to layout the location of the dado which will receive the lower right panel. The dry fit will also allow me to figure out where to make the 45-deg miter cut for attaching the upper right panel.
Once I marked those, I cut the dado with my router, and then cut the panel to its final length at the table saw. Finally, gluing the horizontal shelf into the dado in the lower vertical partition.
STEP 7: final glue-up
The rest of the glue up is pretty straight forward. It's all just a series of referential measurements and glue + clamps. With the horizontal shelf glued up in the previous step, I was able to measure the height of the two right panels, cut them down at the table saw, and glue them on either side of the horizontal shelf.
Finally, the last two pieces to glue up were the top and right panels of the top left cubby.
My tip for the dry fits is to always clamp the panels down using a right angle clamp. This ensures the panels are all squared up during the dry fit, which will help to ensure everything will come out nice and squared up when glued up.
STEP 8: short legs
With the case complete, let's work on the legs. Since the legs are different lengths between right and left, the plan is to just make one set of legs first, then use referential measurements to determine the length of the other set. In this case, I started with the shorter legs.
After squaring up the lumber and milling it down to thickness, I set my miter gauge to 10 degrees and made a crosscut on both ends of the workpiece. This is the angle that the legs will be spread out at. Next, I laid out the taper on the workpiece, starting at 3" at the top and going down to 1" at the bottom. Since these legs were only 6 inches long, I just lined up my mark with the edge of my crosscut sled to make the cut.
STEP 9: cleats
Since the legs are asymmetrical between left and right, I couldn't make the usual cross brace that attaches the legs together. So what I ended up doing is making a couple of cleats with dados that the legs will sit in. And then this assembly will attach to the case using bolts, which you'll see in the next step. Once the cleats were cut to size, I marked out the dados which the legs will sit in, and cleared out the material using my dado set.
Next, I drilled the holes for the bolts to attach the assembly to the case. First, I used a Forstner bit to form a recess for the head of the bolt to sit in, then I drilled a thru-hole for the bolt to drop through.
When doing a dry fit, I noticed there's a chunk of extra material along the edge of the cleat where it meets the taper of the legs. So I used my angle gauge to figure out how much to tilt my blade and removed the material from the cleat.
I also ended up reinforcing the joint with some dowels. I simply drilled the holes for the dowels using a regular drill bit and a drill guide to help keep things squared up. Finally, I trimmed the extra length of the dowels with a flush trim saw.
step 10: attaching the short leg assembly
To attach the leg assembly, I placed it on the bottom side of the case and marked the corresponding hole locations on the bottom surface of the case. Then I drilled the necessary holes for accepting the threaded inserts.
step 11: longer legs & assembly
After the short leg assembly was attached, I used the same method to attach the cleat that will be part of the longer leg assembly. Then all I'll have to do is cut the 10-deg angle along one end of the workpiece for the longer legs, insert it into the cleat, and figure out where to make the final crosscut.
After cutting the workpiece to its final length, I used my tapering jig to cut the tapers on the legs since these were much longer, I couldn't make the cut, accurately, on the crosscut sled. To use this jig, I just had to line up the ends of my layout lines to the miter slots on the tape saw, lock it down, and make the cut.
Once everything was done, I sanded the case and the leg assemblies to 220 grit and applied finish to everything before putting it all back together.
step 12: framing the mirror
Next up, it's time to work on framing the mirror. I started by ripping a few pieces of walnut down to size and then laid out a rabbet that will leave about 5mm of lip around the perimeter of the mirror. To make the cut, I made one pass with the blade raised to 5mm, and then flipped the workpiece 90-deg to cut away the remaining material.
With my miter gauge set at 45-deg, I cut the mitered ends on the frame pieces. I went back and forth between the mirror and the table saw, taking measurements and cutting to get the pieces to fit properly. Finally, I used a construction adhesive to attach the frame to the mirror before applying finish to the whole thing.
step 13: attaching the mirror
Since there isn't a back piece to the case, I couldn't use the long brackets that are normally used for attaching mirrors to cabinets. But I found this L bracket that worked perfectly for this application.
I first attached two brackets to the bottom corners of the mirror, then placed the mirror on top of the case to mark the locations for where to drill on the case. I also added an additional bracket on the side of the mirror for additional support.
And with that, the console is complete!