70x40 Mirror for $45

I completely forgot to post this last week, but here it is:  my finished mirror in our dining area!  (I use the term "area" loosely, because as you can see, it's tiny.  Our couch is practically in it.  It's more of a dining nook.)  It took me about a year of living in this house to realize that that big wall needed something flat on it like artwork or a mirror.  Since our first floor is so small and only has one window,  I thought that a mirror would help open the space up.  My only problem was finding a giant, affordable mirror.  I'd seen tutorials for how to frame a bathroom mirror all over the blog world, so I decided to try the same thing with a mirror that wasn't in a bathroom. 

It took no time to find someone trying to get rid of a frameless bathroom mirror on Craigslist.  I bought my 70 x 40 mirror for $30, and I had it hung within a couple days (I hung it with mirror clips just like you would hang a mirror in a bathroom).  I wish I could say that it took me the same amount of time to get it framed.  I'm so embarrassed to say that I had that mirror hanging for almost two years before I got around to getting it framed!  I don't know what took me so long!  It was just one of those things that kept getting pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.

When I finally got around to getting it framed it was soooooo easy.  I bought $15 of molding and had my uncle cut it with his miter saw.  I painted the molding with white semi-gloss paint so that it would match the rest of my molding and I used these materials to attach the molding to my mirror.

 Double-sided duct tape, liquid nails, and spackle. 

I alternated beads of liquid nails and strips of duct tape on the backside of the molding.  The duct tape just held the molding in place while the liquid nails was drying.

After all the pieces of molding were on, I filled in the corners with spackle, smoothed them down, and painted over them.

You can't even tell that it's not one piece or that it didn't come ready-made from a store.

 Here's a before shot...before my chandy update, before the table runner, before the framed mirror:

This mirror was the last big project on our first floor.  All I really have left to do now is change out some accessories in our kitchen and I will be "done" with one whole floor of our house.  Yippee!

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