I have had a lot of people asking if I have DIY instructions for a mandir. Well, I havent built a mandir for myself:P, I just used a curio cabinet :).
But one of my insta friend Himaja has created a lovely DIY wall mount mandir and she is here to share detailed instructions on how to buid this beautifu mandir herself.
“You can ask any Indian Immigrant what do they miss most about living in India, I can assure one of the top answers you’ll receive is the festivals (Diwali, Sankranti/Pongal, Dussehra). Festivals are such happy occasions: Mom’s yummy savories, relatives, break from school and most importantly the pooja. I wanted to have a mandir that we could create all those memories in, in the US.” Himaja have always wanted to have a grand pooja mandir, but a quick google search revealed the reality of how expensive traditional Indian Pooja Mandir’s are. Even the simple ones were about $2k-$3k and none of them came close to my vision. So, she thought why not make one herself? She spent couple of hours on Pinterest, YouTube and Home depot and designed something and tweaked the ideas and built this mandir.
Lets swing into her space and see how she did this.
Being that I barely have any wood work knowledge/experience, I knew I couldn’t work with angles and had to get creative. If you don’t already know, here’s a pro-tip – Home Depot can cut the plywood for you. You just have to give them the measurement.
Things Needed for the Pooja Mandir:
Ply Wood (2 different thicknesses)
Z-Hanger (To mount the Mandir to the wall)
Before we start on the project, these are the dimensions of the mandir we would be making.
It’s easier to work on the mandir if you break your project into smaller pieces. So, focus on either the gopuram/the top teepee portion or the bottom portion of the mandir first. Also, having a partner makes the work go a lot faster and fun 😊
Another important tip is not to use excessive glue, apply enough glue and make sure it doesn’t overflow to other parts. This will help at the end when you are staining the wood. Stain doesn’t stick to the glue.
Top of the mandir
- You will need crown molding, crown molding corners and ply wood for this step. If you can find a crown molding the same size as the length of the crown molding corner then great, if not use 2 different crown moldings to create that length.
- Begin by aligning the crown molding corners against either edge of the ply wood and place the crown molding against the corners.
a. Note – The molding may not align perfectly with the crown molding corners. If you have any gaps, use wood filer paste to seal the gap.
- Close the top of the gopuram by gluing a similar ply wood used for the bottom.
- While the plywood is drying, spray paint the finials.
- Once the Ply wood and the finials are dry, evenly space the finials and glue them. (You can do this step at the end after staining the mandir or now while you finish the gopuram).
Part 2: Building the base
- Glue the crown molding around the perimeter of the ply wood for the base.
- Once the crown molding glued against the ply wood is dried, you are now able to leave the base standing like a table and can begin installing the pillars or the Pine Traditional Legs towards the front of the base.
- You can install the legs 2 ways:
- You can gorilla glue the legs to the ply wood or
- Install the steel top plate to the ply wood and screw the legs into the steel plate.
Part 3: Gopuram
- Using Gorilla Glue, glue the gopuram you created in part 1 by balancing on top of the Pine Legs.
- This step is a preference, if you don’t want a background you can leave the mandir as is. If you’d like a background or plan on mounting the mandir to the wall then close the back of the mandir with a 40in long ply wood covering the entire back.
Note: you may need a miter saw for this step. If you are ok with just gluing the ply wood as is you can do so. But if you’d like the gopuram shape in the back as well, then you’ll have to cut out a little bit of the ply wood corners at the top. - This concludes building the structure of the mandir.
- To stain the wood, I used the Mahagony color stain from Home Depot. I used Varathane Poly + Stain (Gloss). I suggest using this because it has the Polyurethane and Stain in one. You can just do 2 coats of this and be done. If you decide to use just a wood stain, make sure to spray Polyurethane at the end to protect and enhance the wood.
- Accessories: As a final touch I added brass bells around the perimeter of the gopuram. I bought the bells from Amazon.
