Dated Mirror Transformation

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.