Wooden Makeup Box

I’m excited to share this Christmas present I made for my mom with you all! She’s a fan of the blog, so I couldn’t share it earlier, but I like this thing a lot. Two weeks ago, I shared with you how I had renovated my moms bathroom in just two days. It looked gorgeous and then at the very end she picks up this plastic tub and sets it down on top of the toilet. I said to her “WTF?” and she said it was her makeup container and she had to have all of her makeup with easy access. There was no way I was going to make this beautiful bathroom and then stick a plastic tub in plain sight. So, ipso facto, I built her a wooden makeup box.

Wooden Makeup Box

This is a really simple box and you could really use it for anything. I built it to the dimensions that I had measured out on my mom’s toilet where I knew she would want to keep it. This one is 16″x7″x4″ and I made the entire thing out of a six foot long 1″x8″ piece of poplar. The first thing I did was cut the pieces.

Cut List:

• 1- 16″x7″
• 2- 16″x4″ mitered
• 2- 7″x4″ mitered
• 1- 15″x6″

After making the cuts, I glued up the four sides using Gorilla Wood Glue and right angle clamps.

Then, I sunk in the 15×6 piece to the bottom of that frame and glued it in.

While that was setting, I rounded off the top edges and corners of the 16×7 piece using an orbital sander. This will serve as the top of the box. I also glued on a tiny nub of wood in the center to serve as a little handle of sorts.

Next, I used an epoxy and sawdust mixture to fill in the gaps in the corners and around the underside of the box. After it dried, I used the orbital sander to buff down the excess and round the corners to make it look like one piece.

Next, I used a chisel to cut out recessed rectangles for the hinges on both the box and the top, then attached the hinges.

Because of the beautiful grey color of the poplar, I didn’t stain the box at all because I wanted it to match the shelves I put up in my mom’s bathroom. So I just poly’d it.

The box turned out great and she loves it. She is so happy with it and it looks so much better than the plastic tub!