Mirror Makeover

* A big thank you to everyone for helping us choose our new Blog Pic! Another big thanks for all the sweet words about my family, we have lots of fun together & I'm glad our pictures capture that! As you can see we went with picture 'A' and added Mojo's picture too. We love that our blog now represents our whole family. Even though I'm they main blogger (Hasani chimes in from time to time) this is truly a family affair documenting all the fun and sometimes stressful projects we've done since becoming homeowners *

Now back to the mirror makeover. Back when I was shopping for a dresser for Avery's nursery I came across an old 70's mirror at a local thrift store. Once I saw the mirror, I knew I had to have it. A while back  I missed out on a fab mirror, because Hasani couldn't see its makeover potential. This time I listened to my gut and loaded the huge mirror into my shopping cart. I paid $ 25 bucks for the mirror, but considering its size and weight, it appears to be really wood cut all one piece, its actually a good deal.

When I came home with my prize, sure enough Hasani thought I bought home a lemon you know an ugly car that you paid to much for and can't take back. Then I reminded him of the mirror that got away, and shared with him my inspiration from Little Green Notebook. Jenny took an aged mirror and transformed it from icky to wow. She painted the mirror a moody grey.

{ Little Green Note Book }

I decided the best spot for this mirror would be at the end of our hallway. The one and only hallway hasn't seen much decor action in our house, just paint and an updated light fixture we installed months ago. I thought by installing the mirror at the very end of our hallway it would accomplish to things. 1. Bounce more natural light around during the daylight hours. 2. Make our hallway look larger, since mirrors always have that great affect. Next I took color inspiration from the pillows in our living room. I love the new floral pillows, great colors: greens, navy, golden yellow, turquoise.

I thought the painting the mirror a shade of green would look really good. I went to Lowes and bought a small sample paint size of 'Crushed Oregano. Before applying the paint, I cleaned the mirror with soapy water and then applied a coat of primer. After applying the first a few brush strokes of paint, I HATED how it was looking it was just awful. So I went back and thought what about a darker green, nope another FAIL.

So instead of jumping into another color fiasco, I do what I always do when I hit a design wall. I take a few days off from the project and come back to it with fresh eyes. See the to oops colors in the back ground, yeah not my cup of tea of this mirror. Anyways this time I decided to go dark deep navy. I bought 2 cans of Krylon Fusion paint in glossy. It says its for plastic, but also works on wood metal. Plus I liked the fast dry time.



I was very impressed after spraying on one coat of paint. Everything was looking smooth and shiny. Crazy glossy shiny and I HATE spray painting, but this spray paint and I for along. I was a little concerned the navy blue I was going for wasn't getting dark enough, but by coat # 2 I could already see a darker shade emerging. After spraying on the final coat I wait 12 hours before bringing the mirror inside, plenty of time for the 'spray paint smell' to blow away.

This once dated mirror used to be attached to a dresser, so I needed to install new hanging hardware. I decided to go with U brackets, they promise to hold 50 pounds. We estimated the dresser was likely around 15 pounds. I my ruler to pick the placement for the brackets and help create a strait line. The Hasani nailed in the hanging hooks. The mirror hangs just outside of our bedroom and Avery's in the future we'll look into a new method of hanging the mirror as Avery gets older and mobile and starts to pull himself up on objects. I can see us drilling directly into the mirror into a stud. We'll share what we end up doing.



Here's a the after, a nice long shot of how the mirror looks in our hallway. In this picture its hard to tell what color the mirror is, but in real life you can easily tell its a deep navy. I LOVE how the mirror looks its glossy and pretty and does exactly what I wanted, bounces more light around and creates the illusion of a larger hall.

Look at the shine!

Although it took longer to get to the after on this mirror with the two color hiccups along the way! I'm really glad I stuck with it, I love find old pieces and giving them a second chance and an updated modern look.

** Update, I forgeot to mention, I spray painted right over the green paint and did not prime and had great results! It's usally recommended that you prime first **

Have you transformed any old mirrors lately? Have you had in color hiccups with a project before, what was the end result?

PS: Also check out this post here about Organized Spaces on ReNest, from Apartment Therapy Chic Little House was mentioned! :) Super cool to be included in such a great group :)

Goodwill Black Friday Deals

I popped into our local Goodwill on Saturday night { yup, I spend my Saturday nights shopping for deals } Mr. CLH house was with me so I considered it our mini date night! As you may remember I've been on the hunt for the perfect dresser for our 3rd bedroom, I want something similar to the dresser I scored on Craigslist { seen here } Anyways while I was there I noticed tow pretty long mirror with lots of detail, I could tell the the mirrors once were attached to a dresser. I fell in love with it, plus it was a mere $ 14 bucks, my husband on the other hand didn't care for it. Against my better judgment I didn'nt buy it! On the way out the store I saw Goodwill's Black Friday deals! Yup, Goodwill does Black Friday! The whole store will be 1/2 off! I'll be there first on Friday morning hoping no one scooped up the mirrors, there's two so the odds might be in my favor. Sadly I took no pictures, but Jenny from Little Green Notebook found a similar mirror she redid for a clients home. Here's the before, yup a basic dated looking mirror.

{ via LGN }

I love how the mirror turned out once it was painted a dark moody grey. So pretty! All the detail on the top of the mirror now looks amazing.

{ via LGN }

{ via LGN }

Most likely the mirror will be hung at the end of our hallway, I the hanging the mirror there will make the hallway look larger and hopefully bring in more night since its parallel to our front door.

Is Goodwill on your Black Friday must shop places?

New Reflection in the Mirror

Thanks everyone! For giving me their opinion about moving our large mirror from our living room and into dining room. As I said before I was nervous is would look to big on our small wall & but up against our light switch. Thankfully, Kasey suggested I use painters tape to make off the measurement of the mirror and see if I like the size of it in the dining room. Here's a reminder how dining room looked. Here's a recap of our dining redo (click here)

That night I used my painters tape and marked off the area and lived with it for a few days. I liked that when we walked into our dining room we would see the reflection of the other side of the dining room and the space would seem much larger, however the mirror has thick heavy molding and I thought it might look odd next to our light switch. So instead of just doing a mirror swap, I also moved the buffet to the other side of the dining room and changed the way the chalk board was hanging.My dining room table got serioulsy messy as I cleaned out our buffet.

I got a little ahead of myself and forgot to take a picture of how the mirror would look on the wall. As you can see, the mirror would have looked to chunky next to our light switch and alarm keypad.

On the other side of the  wall, I used the blue painters tape to map out where the mirror would hang and then placed in on the wall. I love it! Here's the new refelction in our mirror.

Here's how the dining room looks now, when you enter our dining room from the living room.

And a wide shot of the dining room view from the ktichen.

With our large mirror placed in our dining room and the buffet moved, the dining room feels much more open and inviting. I love how the mirror helps bounce the light around in our dining room. I also prefer the buffet under the chalk board.

On a side note, used my two large candles holders as vases and placed yellow flowers in them. I love candle holders & vases that do doulbe duty. Two vases filled with flowers give our dark walnut dining room table a fresh look.

Again thanks for everyone sharing with me thier opinion. How do you think the large mirror looks now that its in our dining room?

Extra Large Mirror for Our Dining Room?

I've been thinking about moving our large mirror that resides in our living and putting in our dining room. Since we have a small dinning room, I think the mirror would make the space look larger and bounce more light around. Here's how our dining room currently looks.  I would place the mirror where our chalk board is and move the chalk board above the buffet.

The mirror thats currently over our buffet would be placed elsewhere in our house. 

The mirror I want to move into our dining room currently resides in our living room. It's a large mirror and super heavy.

Below is an old picture of the mirror, leaning against our living wall before it was hung { right after we first moved into our house}. This gives you a better idea how large the mirror is. I bought a few years ago at Ross for $ 49.99. It was so large, it didn't fit into the trunk of my car. 

Mr. CHL isn't convinced a the extra large mirror will look good in the dinning room. I think it will be perfect for the space, just hoping our light switch and alarm box isn't in the way. I love the two dining rooms below both have extra large mirrors.

{ via Decorpad }

{ via Decorpad }

What do you think of my idea to move our large mirror into the dining room? Will it bounce more light around our house and make the space look larger, or will it look to big and out of place?