Mirror, Mirror

Remember my to do list last week?  My list included plans to re-do the mirror we bought at the McKinney, Texas Trade Days last month.  I already shared that I had plans to paint it Behr's Steam White.  I already had a quart of the Steam White that I purchased when we bought the paint for our master, as I have a plan to do a tone on tone mural. I want the mirror in the lighter, whiter tone because I thought it would go nicely hanging on the wall opposite the mural over our dresser.  

Here's what the mirror looked like before:

It had a sort of teal base with a white wash over it to create a shabby chic look.  But it didn't really work for our house because the white wasn't crisp, it was more yellowed.  You can see what I mean in the above picture.  

So I set up a little painting area in the garage and taped off the mirror.  This actually took longer and was much harder and took more time that I had thought because of the curves in the mirror.  As you can see I ended up using small pieces of tape overlapping.  

After I taped it off I painted the first coat on the top and sides (but not the bottom, as it would have stuck.  With each new coat I rotated the mirror and skipped painting the bottom edge.  Eventually everything got two coats.  If I had to do it over again I would have laid the mirror flat on something slightly smaller so that I could paint each coat all at once.  Ah well, you live you learn.  

After my final coat had dried, I pealed the tape off and then touched up the edges where the tape wasn't applied smoothly (oops!).  Once the touch ups were dried I took a paint scraper to the mirror to clean off any excess paint.  

After placing the hanging wire on the back (it already had mounting hardware on the back) I hung it above our dresser in our master bedroom.  And let me tell you this sucker is heavy (obviously, it is after all a giant piece of glass).  I nearly squashed myself under it trying to get it on the wall!  But after a few tries I got it up there and I am proud to say it is safely up there.  

Here the mirror is above our dresser in the master bedroom. It turned out to be the perfect size--large enough to hold its own on this large wall, but small enough to not overwhelm our short-for-a-long-six-drawer dresser.  

This was a great find and an easy (and cheap) way to add a little personality and depth to our room.