Drab to Fab Mirror Makeover

Sharon from Lilikoi Joy had the idea to place long mirrors above her nightstands to mimic the look of windows.

Unfortunately, the mirrors looked more like the cheap plastic door mirrors they were than the pretty windows

Sharon had envisioned. Instead of tossing them to the curb, Sharon decided to give the mirrors a “Hollywood regency style glam makeover.”

They certainly don’t look cheap or plastic now!

Sharon’s site went offline but below is the original tutorial (Thank you, Sharon!)

You know those cheap plastic framed door mirrors that you can find at just about any big box store? I was in one of those stores a while back and as I walked by the mirrors that were on sale for $4.99 each, the thought occurred to me that they looked like tall narrow windows. I love bedrooms that have windows on either side of a bed and thought, “I should take these home and put them above the nightstands so they look like pretty windows!” But when I got home and put them on the wall, they looked less like pretty windows and more like…cheap door mirrors that I stuck on the wall. It’s not terrible, but it’s not all that pretty either. They do reflect light back into the room, and they do remind me of a window, so I guess they met most of my requirements:

Master bedroom “before” pic

It would have been easier (and way more expensive) to get new mirrors, but I already had these and y’all know that I have a hard time throwing stuff out when they still have life left in them (like when I turned my son’s plastic kiddie mirror into a sunburst mirror). I like the challenge of taking something that someone else would think is disposable or worn and making it look new and different. I spent the last couple of years with a very specific picture in my mind of how I wanted to pretty these up, and this past week those mirrors finally got their Hollywood regency-style glam makeover:

from Z Gallerie

For years I’ve been eyeing the oh-so-chic and trendy mirrored dressers and nightstands, but they were out of my budget, plus I wasn’t sure if I’d get tired of them after awhile. In my head I could see turning those ol’ door mirrors into a cross between mirrored furniture and beautiful X-molding windows like this:

from Interiors Magazine

Until recently, I didn’t realize how drawn I am to X-style furnishings – we have barstools with the X pattern on the back, two shelves, an old glass console table with a cross bar below, and several accessories with X patterns in them. I also like circle patterns and have a lot of that around here too. I guess I’m an XOXO kind of gal. 🙂 These shapes are common in the Hollywood regency style that I’m digging so that could be why I’m so attracted to them.

Here’s my very technical drawing on the back of an envelope that I drew as we started this project so I could explain it better to my other half. He couldn’t see my vision with my verbal explanation of, “You know, with X’s and silver and a built-out frame with plywood! It’ll look great!”:

My original plan was to silverleaf these mirror frames. I love that look! Let me just say that I’ve never used silver leaf before. I must have been insane thinking I could just stroll on in and silverleaf two huge pieces without any experience with it! The moment I started working with it, I knew instantly that I would not be able to finish one mirror let alone two without pulling my hair out. It flaked all over and kept crumbling apart, it stuck to my fingers, it didn’t take well to all the corners and curves on the moldings, and I quickly realized I would need a lot more silver leaf (and patience) to finish this than I had on hand. Then I remembered I had silver metallic spray paint in my craft cabinet. It was a lot cheaper and easier than silver leafing, but I worried that I wouldn’t like the finish as much. I loved it! I ended up sanding off the section of silver leaf that I had put on and spray-painting it silver instead. So much easier! I think this mirror would look amazing with a gold or brass finish too. Black or dark espresso brown would be fantastic too, giving these mirrors a tropical vibe. If you wanted to tone down and “age” the silver a bit, you could always use a dark glaze or something like a dark-colored Rub n Buff on it too. So many options if I ever get tired of the silver!

If you’re a silver leaf wizard, I say go for it. I’m also a little jealous of your skills.

COST: The total cost of this mirror for me was about $45 per mirror to make. $45! That’s less than a hundred bucks for two huge mirrors! I can barely find one decent large mirror for a hundred bucks let alone two! If you don’t have the mirror or some of the other DIY materials we always have on hand like wood filler, caulk, nails, sandpaper painter’s tape, etc, then it will cost you more, maybe around $65 I’m guessing. That’s still a great bargain for a huge mirror that’s chic and unique. The cost breakdown of what we bought for this project is in the tutorial below.

TIME: I honestly can’t tell you how long this project took us to do from start to finish because we did a couple of steps at a time, then went and did something else, then came back to it the next day, messed up on something, started over, got it right, messed up again, backtracked, and finally finished. All in all, we probably worked on this for a week and a half doing all that. Hopefully it really only takes a few days (that’s mostly because of the dry time) if you learn from my mistakes. We made two mirrors and the second mirror went much quicker than the first. I’m not going to say this is an easy project, but if you tackle it step by step, it is quite doable and so worth it!

TUTORIAL: There’s a detailed tutorial at the end of this post. It’s super long. It’s really not as complicated as it might look – you’re basically adding a cheap door mirror to a larger MDF base, adding molding around it, then adding some decorative molding to the mirror and gluing on a few jewels. I might have gone a little crazy with the tutorial pics and instructions below but hopefully after reading it you’ll feel like you can make one of these mirrors too. Or maybe you’ll run screaming from it wondering what the heck I was thinking.

• An inexpensive door mirror like this, or whatever size wall mirror you may already have or want to use ($5-10 depending on if you can find them on sale)
• 1 sheet of 1/2″ MDF that’s 6-8 inches larger than the length and width of the mirror. Our mirrors were 13″ wide x 49″ long and I wanted the final width to be 20 inches, so I needed a MDF piece cut to 20″ wide by 56″ long. At our Home Depot, sheets were either 2 ft x 4 ft for around $12 (7 inches too short, darn!) or the next size up was 4 ft x 8 ft for $25. We bought the larger sheet since we were making 2 mirrors with it (and we still have almost 1/3 of it leftover to use for another project), so I’m going to conservatively say it’s about $12 worth of MDF for each mirror. Other lumber stores might have different sizes that will work better for you. We used MDF because it’s a smooth surface to paint.
• 2 – 7 ft. lengths of door stop molding (5/16″ thick x 1 3/16″ wide), or use whatever style molding you want for the outside edge. Get enough to go around your edge of your MDF sheet. My personal preference is that it would look best if the molding you get is at least as thick as the molding on the existing mirror frame or thicker. Also consider the style of molding you select – choose one that’s either very simple like the door stop molding or one that matches the existing molding on the mirror, something that goes with the other molding so it looks cohesive. About $12
• Wood doweling/strips for the “mullions” or crossbars. You want something that is not thicker than the existing inside molding of the mirror, so get something equal to or sits slightly lower than the thickness of the inside of your frame. Home Depot carries square wooden doweling that might work for you, but I admit to being really particular since this vision has been in my head for several years, and I was looking for something that was thin enough to not extend above the mirror’s molding but wide enough to give it impact. I found 3/16″ thick x 1/2″ wide x 24″ length basswood strips at Hobby Lobby in the wood crafts area that was exactly what I was looking for. The cost is $1.49 for a 2 foot piece. I needed 7 pieces for one mirror. I think that’s a little expensive compared to if you found longer strips somewhere else, but it’s what I found that worked. Hobby Lobby had less expensive balsa wood strips, but it was really soft and pliable and I wasn’t sure how well that would work so I went with the sturdier basswood. About $11.
• Construction adhesive that’s good to use on mirror and wood
• Hammer and small finishing nails or a compression nail pinner 
• Black or dark gray spray paint (optional, explained below) to paint the undersides of the mullions
• Caulk
• Paintable wood filler
• Drywall compound (or you could probably use the wood filler too) to seal MDF edge
• Sandpaper / 220 grit
• Painter’s tape
• Gray primer spray paint. I used Rustoleum and it was fine although it did seem to raise the grain on the wood a little and I had to knock it down with sandpaper. You might have a preference for spray paint primers, go for whatever one you want. $4 with coupon
• Silver metallic spray paint. I used Krylon Premium Silver Foil Metallic. I had a full can already on hand but if you have to go out and buy it, it’s like 5 bucks. I like the end result a lot but there are a couple things about it that I explain below that I think is important to know.
• Optional “jewels” for the center of the X cross bars. I think they look a little like glass knobs that you see on some of the mirrored furniture pieces. I picked up some acrylic crystals for 88 cents on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I think even a quarter or nickel would work, or if you can find a really small ring pull, that would look great like in that mirrored cabinet inspiration above. Get creative, or don’t add anything at all. Your call!
• 2  D-rings with screws. The finished mirror is heavy so even though D rings are annoying, they’re good for hanging heavy items on the wall. $2

Instructions:
1.  Begin by cutting your MDF to size or have it cut at the home improvement center where you’re purchasing the MDF from. We cut this on a table saw. I wanted my finished mirror to be the same width as my nightstand, 20 inches. My door mirror is 13 inches wide so I added 7 inches to the width (3.5 inches on each side) and added the same to the length (the mirror is 49 inches long), so we cut the MDF down to 20 inches wide by 56 inches long. You can make your frame size thicker or thinner than 3.5 inches depending on how chunky you want your frame to look.

2.  Next, I cut the door stop molding to size to fit around the outside perimeter of the MDF sheet, making a 45-degree mitered corner. You can do this with a power miter saw or a miter box and hand saw. Attach molding with finishing nails. We have a compression nail pinner and I love it. It makes the job go so much faster and makes the teeniest holes that require hardly any filling later:

I have the mirror just sitting on the MDF in this picture, but I didn’t attach it until the next step.

3.  Remove any paper backing from the back of mirror. Lay your mirror on the MDF and center it so that you have an equal amount of space all around the mirror. For instance, I had cut my MDF 3.5″ bigger than the mirror all the way around, so I marked in 3.5″ from the outside edge of the frame all the way around the frame, marking it at intervals, then connected those marks with a pencil using a ruler. Those lines are where the mirror will line up. Next, attach the mirror to the MDF with construction adhesive, lining up the edge of the mirror with the pencil lines. Use a construction adhesive that’s good for mirrors and wood. Apparently there are some adhesives that will interact with the silvering from the back of mirrors which will cause discoloration on the mirror. I didn’t know that until after I did these. The adhesive I used is great for wood and glass, but it does not specifically say it’s safe for keeping the silvering on mirrors so I guess I run the risk of the silvering turning a different color down the road. I’m living on the edge with this one:

I added a thin line of adhesive all around the frame first (shown above). I didn’t want to make it too thick or too close to the edge and have it ooze out when I pressed it onto the MDF. Then I globbed on a decent amount of adhesive evenly throughout the rest of the mirror back (globs not shown. Globs is probably not the correct professional industry term. Dollop? haha)

4.  While the adhesive is drying, spray paint the basswood strips on one side black or dark gray. We’re actually painting the side of the molding that will be up against the mirror. Sounds weird, right, like why would I do THAT? It’s because there’s a small strip of the underside of the molding that can be seen in the reflection of the mirrors. The original frame of the mirror has a black underside in the reflection, so I painted the mullions black to match it. If you leave it wood colored, you’ll be able to see a small strip of the wood color in the reflection of the mirror. It’s a little detail so if that doesn’t bother you, by all means, skip it, it’s totally optional:

Added 2/7/13: You might want to read what I wrote in step #8 at this point before adding the mullion pieces to the mirror and switch up some of the steps. They both work, do whatever way works better for you. This way worked for me since I wanted to fill in any gaps with wood filler between the mullions and the frame after I attached them, which would require me to tape and touch up the paint anyway. 

Add the “mullions” to the mirror:

6.  We’re going to add the two horizontal pieces that divide the mirror into thirds next (see picture below). Measure the length of the mirror from inside frame to inside frame, divide that number into thirds, and mark the measurement on both sides of the frame with a pencil. We’re creating 3 equal sized rectangles on the mirror. Next, measure the width across the mirror from inside frame to inside frame and cut a wood strip to that size. If using the 24″ basswood strips, you’ll be able to get two pieces from one wood strip if your mirror width on the inside of the frame is 12″ or less. Add construction adhesive to the wood strip and attach it to mirror along your marks. I used a framing square to help me keep the wood strip straight and square to the side of the mirror. No one wants a wonky mullion.

After gluing, I let that set for several hours. Since they are the base for adding the X moldings, I wanted them to be attached securely and not sliding around while I was working on the X pieces, which is the next step.

7.  For the X pieces, I didn’t want to have to figure out angles and geometry to cut the molding pieces, so I basically eyeballed it and marked the angle with a pencil (look away technical draft engineers, look away!). Then I cut it on my miter box using a hand miter saw. Once one corner was cut, I marked the other end the same way and cut it. Sometimes I needed to trim it a little or file it to get it to fit, but it always seemed to work. If there was a slight gap, I just filled it with wood filler later. For each X, there are 6 cuts you’ll need to make, below:

Where else you gonna find a sweet graphic like this one? Nowhere.

For cuts #5 and #6 in the picture above, I laid the trimmed piece across the top of the bottom piece as you see in the numbered picture, marked it with a pencil like below, and made my cuts:

Then I glued each cut piece down in this order with construction adhesive:

I repeated steps 7 and 8 two more times for the other Xs. Let the adhesive dry according to package instructions. Even though there are a lot of details explained for the X moldings, it didn’t take more than 1/2 hour to do all them.

8. Tape off the mirror with painter’s tape. I’ve gotta tell ya, taping around all the mullions was tedious. It might have been easier to prime and paint all the mullions separately ahead of time and then glue them on after painting the frame, but I didn’t think about that ahead of time. You might want to consider doing that but either way works fine. You can also use newspaper or scrap paper to cover the mirror in combination with the tape.

9.  Fill any holes and gaps with wood filler. Rick caulked around the entire mirror edge between the plastic mirror frame and the MDF since there was a slight gap there. We also sealed the cut MDF outside edge with drywall compound since those cut ends are really porous and will soak up the paint unevenly (not shown). The paint color and sheen won’t ever look the same as the rest of the piece unless you seal it first. Primer alone won’t cut it. You can probably skip this step if you don’t care what the sides of the mirror frame looks like, but just know the edges will look different. Once all the filler/caulk is dry, sand the entire piece with sandpaper to smooth out any rough or uneven spots.

10. Prime the entire mirror including the edges with a couple of light coats of primer according to manufacturer’s directions (do it in a well-ventilated area like an open garage or outdoors). Let dry based on whatever time the manufacturer suggests. Then spray paint the piece with the metallic silver paint according to the manufacturer’s instructions. We used 5 very light coats of silver metallic paint, letting it dry in between:

Three things to know about the metallic paint: 

1. Shake this stuff frequently. You’ll get sputtering if you don’t which shows on the finished frame. Since I ended up sanding it later again (see #3), that took care of it for me…
2. I don’t know if it’s this brand or just something about silver metallic paint in general or what, but it took about a week to cure to the point that I felt comfortable touching the mirror frame. If I touched it before that, it left dark gray fingerprints and the metallic sheen would easily rub off like a powdery layer even though it was “dry”. It’s no longer doing that, but I’d advise that you don’t touch it for at least several days and then check it out. It might even need longer to cure. Be forewarned. 
3. The other important thing I learned the hard way is to NOT seal this with any kind of sealant topcoat. I thought it would help with the paint rubbing off and leaving dark marks, but the top coat totally ruined the sheen of the silver and turned it dull darker gray sort of like the primer layer. AAarrgghhh! I might have cussed a few times when I realized what was happening. I ended up sanding it, priming it, and painting the entire thing all over again. The manufacturer’s directions don’t recommend a top coat, but it doesn’t say not to either, so I’m telling you now, don’t.

After the final coat of paint, remove the tape. That was my favorite part! Hot glue or use construction adhesive to glue whatever bling you want onto the center of each X (I got my jewels at Hobby Lobby). Now stand back and admire your creation! I started jumping up and down and clapping my hands because I was so happy how it turned out. It’s just like what I’ve been seeing in my head for the last couple years!

To hang on the wall, attach 2 D rings on the back of the mirror and hang from screws that are either in a stud or using a wall anchor. These mirrors are heavy so hang ’em right to bear the load.

Disclaimer: I’m sharing with you how I made our mirror and the materials I used to make it. I’m not an expert in mirror making and I don’t claim that my way is the best way to do anything, but I’ve done my fair share of DIY projects at home and I’m happy with how these turned out for us. Maybe you’ll want to tackle something like this for yourself but just know that what might work for me might not work for you or your situation or your available supplies. You may have to problem solve and get creative depending on your own situation. If you do make this, I’d love to hear about it and any tidbits you learned while doing it! 

Find the detailed tutorial at Lilikoi Joy (archived).

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