My mirror

[Hein-Jan]

My fellow MagicMirror enthusiasts,

I ran into Michael project about a year or more ago. It kept nagging in the back of my mind. Having revisited it in November I saw that the MagicMirror2 had sprung to life. That got me going, so I decided to start my project over Christmas.

The monitor and Pi were relative easy, and within a few days I had the computer hardware running (thanks KirAsh4 for an excellent tutorial!).
Then came the woodwork. Going to a local DIY store and buying some strips of MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) and a strip of architrave (the strips that cover the gap between a doorframe and the wall) was again relative simple. Getting all that together into a simple, square, seamless frame cost a lot of filler and sanding work.
3 layers of undercoat and 3 layers of colour topcoat took throughput time (applying was 5 minutes, drying 24 hrs…).
I had decided that I wanted a metallic finish. So I ordered 5 grams of flakes and mixed them with a clear coat. 2 layers of mixed coat, topped with 3 layers of clear coat (without the flakes) finished the paint job.
Ah, I almost forgot, I also had to paint the back of and the sides of the frame as they would be visible, also adding to the throughput time.

In one of the final days of 2016 I went to a local interior decoration store and informed about obtaining an observation mirror. In the second week of January I received their quote, and confirmed the order. Delivery took another 2 weeks.
So hardware took me about 2 days, the woodwork about a week, the paintjob almost 2,5 weeks, getting the mirror took me 4 weeks.

The simple 24” 16:9 monitor was about € 120,-, the Pi including power supply, casing, HDMI cable etc. € 70,-, the woodwork € 15,-. The paint was another € 50,-. The mirror was € 120,-. So in total the cost amount to something between € 350,- and € 400,-.

This weekend it all came together.

I am quite pleased about the metallic effect:

The woodcolorred glow on the frame is a reflection of my yellow fleece, not a imperfection in the paint job .

I am running: Systemtemp, Updatenotification, Remote Control (which now has an update module in it!), Clock, Calendar Monthly, Calendar (with Google agenda), Compliments (need to look into using a compliments file…), Currentweather, Weatherforecast, Wunderlist (twice for separate lists), Newsfeed (by nu.nl).