Here are some tips on how I made a mirror gallery wall in my office with thrifted mirrors. I love the final result and it was an easy, one day project you can do too! I put it off for way too long to just do it.
I’m so glad I finally did! If you follow me on instagram, you’ll know I have a mirror obsession. It’s bit of a problem, but I finally found a place for all of my antique and thrifted beauties.
Some of these mirrors are from the thrift store, a few from facebook market place. Most of them are antique mirrors, but some are “antiques” if you get what I mean. They are made to look old.
The first time I tried to make a gallery wall in my office, I didn’t have a plan. I threw what I had up on the wall and added mirrors as I acquired them. It looked pretty, but not the way I wanted.
Develop a Plan for The Mirror Gallery Wall
First, I decided on staying in the same color family for the wall. I really love the look of ornate, gold, antique, aged mirrors. I had a few white, some wood, some new and old gold mirrors that I had collected. Narrowing down the ones I really liked, the rest were donated. The thrift store got some new mirrors that day! It all comes full circle! Get it?
Next, decided started with a focal point for the wall. I chose the biggest and most ornate of all the mirrors. I love this mirror, and believe it or not, it is one of the ones that is newer but made to look old. It has been all over my house, on top of my fireplace, as a bathroom mirror, and now my office.
Measuring the width and height of my wall where the mirror gallery wall would go, I taped out the same height and width on the floor. This gave me a template for the available wall space, and I could test out what mirrors would fit.
The big mirror was JUUUUUST small enough to fit on the wall. Putting that one in the center, I was able to take the other mirrors and play with the arrangement until I had something I liked.
I moved the mirrors all around to get the best look, but can you believe I ended up with the first layout I tried?
Make the Plan, Stick to the Plan
Remember how I said I wanted to make the wall a mirrors all from the same color family: gold. Also remember when I said I had a lot of gold mirrors? I thought I had more than I did. Once I eliminated the ones that weren’t working, I was left with a bunch of different colored mirrors. Whoops!
Enter RUB N BUFF! Have you ever used Rub n buff before? I LOVE this stuff! I used a mixture of gold leaf and antique gold to do a $0 update on the mirrors that weren’t already gold.
Just use a foam brush and some gloves, and be sure to protect your area. I had a plastic drop cloth down from when I was doing the bead board wallpaper a couple of weeks ago for the one room challenge.
Hang the Mirrors Up!
Now for the fun part! Put those beautiful babies on the wall. I put the heaviest up with drywall anchors if I couldn’t hang directly on a stud. The smaller ones did fine with some nails, but I used some heavy duty ones just in case.
Voila!
You have a beautiful mirror gallery wall which will make people thing you are so fancy! People loved my wall even when it wasn’t at its best. Now its one of my most asked about areas of my home.
What do you think? Would you try a mirror gallery wall or do you already have one?
Check out what the progress from the other guest participants in week for here
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