Dated Mirror Transformation

Wren’s Little Nest
by Wren’s Little Nest
4 Materials
$10
2 Hours
Easy

When I saw this mirror on marketplace, I just knew that I had to have it and that I could make it look amazing! I loved the shape of it and structurally it was in very good condition. My original plan was to sand it down to bare wood, but I quickly realized that the frame was not made of solid wood. Read below to see what I ended up doing to transform this mirror!

Clean the mirror


As this was a second hand piece I was sure to give it a very thorough cleaning. I used a mild dish soap and a microfibre cloth to get any unwanted debris off the mirror.

Remove the frame from the mirror


The next step is to remove the frame from the mirror and give it a light sanding. You want to rough up the surface just a bit to give the paint something to grip on to. You could also just tape around the frame and leave the mirror intact, but for me it was just as easy to pop the mirror out.

Priming


Because the original finish was a dark red and gold tone, I wanted to give the mirror a few good coats of primer to prevent any bleed through. It would be a shame to spend all this time refinishing a piece only to have the original colour show through in the future.

Painting


Once the primer is dry you can go ahead and give your mirror a few coats of paint. I chose this neutral tone as I was unsure of where I wanted to hang this mirror so I didn’t want to be limited by the colour.

Adding some details


When it was all dry I was happy with the way it looked, but I felt that it was missing something. The mirror looked a little bland. I have so many of these little sample pots of paint around the house, so I thought I would experiment a bit. These little sample pots are perfect for projects like this and they are very affordable!

Dry brushing


The first thing I tried was to dry brush some white paint on the mirror frame. To do this you just take the smallest (and I mean smallest, like barely any) amount of paint on your brush and with a very light hand paint it on in one direction. I was so happy with how this looked I decided to stop there and leave it as is. It added just the right amount of interest and gave it almost the bare wood look I was originally going for.

The finished product


When the paint was all dry I assembled the mirror and hung it up. I absolutely love the way it turned out and sometimes when things don’t go as planned they end up turning out better.

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