This week I decided to take an old, ugly mirror and make it pretty enough to fit in with my gorgeous new apartment. The mirror was bought by my mother over a decade ago because she thought it would match the decorating scheme of my teenage bedroom. It didn’t. It continued its streak of not matching anything I own through a couple more bedrooms until last week, when I figured that enough was enough and went shopping for a replacement. After not being able to find anything suitable (and non-ugly) at a price I was willing to pay, I came to the cold, hard realization that this mirror was going to follow me to the ends of the Earth. This is when I decided that I would try painting it, because chances were slim that it would come out looking worse.
My first step was to go to the hardware store for some paint swatches so I could match the mirror to the colour of the mouldings in the apartment. I then had tester jar of paint mixed up in my desired shade of white. When I came home, I cut a large, plastic recycling bag down one side and the bottom to fashion a plastic sheet, which I draped over my dining table. I then put down enough newsprint to cover most of the table, just in case the plastic layer failed, and taped the edges of the mirror with masking tape. I also purchased a small sponge brush, but quickly gave it up in preference of a standard artist’s brush, which gave me more control and made it easier to get into all the crevices of the frame.
Before
One Coat
Two Coats
After three coats of paint, I removed the tape, happy to see that it had prevented any paint from being applied to the mirror, and cleaned the paint residue off with some Windex and a soft cloth. If you attempt a similar project and do get paint on your mirror, you can remove it with one of your nearest man’s razor blades. If your nearest man doesn’t shave with a double edge/safety razor, tell him to stop shaving like a boy, and start shaving like a real man.
After