Using mirrors can be tricky, because what they reflect is not always what you want hanging on your wall. I like to use mirrors across the room from windows because they reflect the outdoors and bounce light all around the room. I knew I wanted to put mirror up in the dining area of our combination living and dining room. Across from the "dining wall" is a large sliding glass door.
I was planning on using this mirror that I had made for a previous house:
All I did to make this mirror was to mount 8 12 inch mirrors onto a piece of plywood, and then frame it with some window casing. Originally I was going to have black dowels separating the mirrors, but I did my math wrong, cut one of the casings too short - did not have the budget to buy another piece of casing so I had to make do with what I had. It still turned out fine but it always bothered me.
When we moved in to this house that mirror wound up looking like this:
Whoops!! At first I was upset, but then I realized I had an opportunity to right what I had wronged.
Back to the drawing board (or back to Hobby lobby for mirrors). All they had were 8 inch mirrors, so I wound up making 2 sets of four mirrors.
This is a super easy project, and is pretty inexpensive - although moulding does add up - and it's best if you can catch the mirrors on sale.
For each one you'll need:
- a 24X24 piece of MDF (mine was 1/4 inch thick) $2.25
- 4 eight inch beveled mirros (you can usually find these in the wedding decoration aisle) $1.99 each
- 4 feet of lattice (I used 1 and 1/8 inches wide) - $1.20
- 8 feet of moulding (I used window casing and bought a little extra so there would be some room for error)
3.5 inches wide - $1.29 per linear foot
-Gorilla Glue
Total cost for each mirror= around $20!!
First I cut all my pieces, (Well, I had Jarrod do it this time so there would be no mistakes :-)), then doused them with some satin finish black spray paint. I worked from the inside out, gluing down the lattice in the middle. Once those were exactly where I wanted them, I put glued the mirrors down. After the mirrors were in place, I glued the casings as well. (I didn't want to nail the casings #1 because of holes to fill and #2 because I didn't want to budge the mirros out of place by nailing - or BREAK anything again)
This is what I wound up with:
Not bad for $20!
I'm linking this up to the Gorilla Glue party over at Shanty2Chic. Thanks girls, for all of your inspiring ideas!!
P.S. I'm sorry, I did read the rules and I'm disqualified from the contest because I don't have pictures of when I made these.