NOW who's the fairest of them all?

Taking a small break from working on Senor Chair, I whipped up some shiny, shimmery splendor in the form of mirror awesomeness.

This is where we started from. You might recall that I scored this mirror from a local garage sale about a month ago. It originally came in a gold-ish yellow hue. The mirror was in pretty good shape, despite being a little dinged up and sporting a little coat of dust. A paint job definitely was in order.

No big deal. I just ran out to your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart and picked up some primer and paint. I was having one of those days when I was feeling somewhat bitten by the fabulous-glamorous bug so naturally I decided to go with painting the mirror a bright silver.

I went with Krylon's low-VOC line of spray paint to be friendly to the environment and to all those readers who are environment-friendly and who would/might otherwise look down on me if I didn't use some thing that was good for the green Earth. (But, really, I do believe enviro-friendliness is a best practice to follow).

To prep the mirror for its glamorous face-lift, I removed all of the mirrors from their frames. I started using a mini-screwdriver to pry the backs off. This proved to be pretty simple-thank goodness-and I ended up being able to ditch the tool and just use my bare hands.

With the mirrors out, I set up shop in the backyard for the paint job.

Before I started spraying, though, I had to get all of the dust, etc., off and out of the mirror so that the paint would dry smoothly, without a "gritty" look that would otherwise result if the dust and gunk were left on the frame's surface. To remove all of this, I used a very sophisticated system which you see in this next picture.

I know what you are thinking: Innovation at its very best.

Anyways, after a few coats of primer and the silver spray, here is where we were about thirty minutes later, thanks to the quick drying action of both paints (primer + top coat).

To avoid messing up the paint job, I waited a few hours for the paint to thoroughly set on the frame before reinstalling the mirrors. Later that evening I picked up where I left off and ended up finding this task kind of entertaining. You see, the mirrors had thin wood  "cushion" backs which had corners cut such that all of the pieces fit snuggly together--assumingly to avoid any shifting of the mirrors which would risk damaging the mirrors and frame. All of this made the mirror re-installation process kind of like a puzzle game. I am quite amused by puzzles, so putting the mirrors back into the frame turned out to be more fun for me than it might have been for the next guy.

After this, I turned around the masterpiece to admire my handiwork, only to discover that I should have wiped down the mirrors before reinstalling. So what did I do? I gave the mirrors The Works.



The Works: Take that dirty mirrors!

Here is another shot of the mirror with The Works before The Works did its work. It isn't the best picture, but the flash let the camera get a great catch of how slimy the mirrors were pre-wash. So I thought it was worth showing you.

Oh my. That is not glamorous.

A couple quick spritz and thorough wipes later, we were back in business and this baby was ready to assume a place of glory in the house.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? You are!

Up close, the deets

To add some "vintage" flavor to the look, I dressed up some recycled wine bottles with some fresh flowers and a silver platter to boot, placing these on the antique side table beneaththe mirror.

The mirror shares a wall with the front door, making it nearby the floral wreath I recently fixed up.

The only thing left to do is to find some candles.  I decided to wait on those for a little bit since I plan to display some Christmas ornaments in place of candles for the Advent and Christmas seasons which are right around the corner....

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