Painting a $25 Thrift Store Mirror for our Dining Room

Our dining room has been a work in progress since we moved in ten months ago. Here was an early view of the room:

Mirror: 1

This setup wasn’t working for me because everything in the room was so angular. There were no soft corners, just hard lines, rectangles, and right angles.

That’s when I happened upon not one, but TWO giant oval mirrors in a thrift store. They matched! And they were $25 each. I snagged one of them, and continue to wonder why I didn’t buy both.

The mirror originally had a black frame (upper left image), which I felt was too heavy, and drew too much attention to itself. The mirror did have a pretty inner ring of silver, which I wanted to keep.

I used painter’s tape to cover up the silver part of the frame so I could paint the black section. I chose a cream colored spray paint, and used three slow and even coats to get nice, even coverage.

thrift store mirror


Here’s the mirror now, on our stenciled dining room wall. I like the way that the mirror pulls light in from the window on the other side of the room, and I like that the angles now seem balanced with more round and curvy lines.

Thrift Store Mirror After 2
Thrift Store Mirror After 2

Happy Weekend!