A Blue and Green Mirror

One of my favorite items in my apartment is a mirror in the living room. It is a piece that fits perfectly where it is hung, looks great, but is also a piece I refinished. Turns out I did more than refinish it, I helped rescued it from a house about to be turn down, and repurposed it into decor for my home.

Here it is, the blue mirror. Funny because this is the first place I spotted the mirror. I took this photo the first day I volunteered for a local environmental organization in September 2007.


Long after this photo was taken I had been eying the mirror at the salvage shop, it just stood out to me, not knowing I had seen it months prior on that day I volunteered. It seemed to have a good shape, was a nice size, and was exactly what I was looking for to complete the far wall in the living room. On sale at $5, how could I pass it up? So I finished shopping and headed home.

Weeks later while looking through my photos, I spotted it in a set I had taken of that organization I volunteered with. What are the chances! Here it is, the mirror I actually helped salvage, on my first day as a volunteer and there it sat in the warehouse all along, just waiting for me to rescue it and take it home.

My first intention was to strip the paint off. At a medium blue color, obviously painted to match someone's interior, it wasn't my style and was very dirty. I wanted so see the color of the wood underneath. Here it is just into sanding, at that time with the help of a friend and a sander. See the beautiful oak?


The paint came off easily, so a few minutes and some intricate scraping later, we were on to replacing the back, which was thin and partially broken in the places where it was nailed to the frame. So we cut a piece of backing and helped nail it to the oak. That is some hard oak!

With the loan of some fasteners and wired rope, we looped it around and tested to make sure it would hold. Success! After those steps I cleaned it off and prepped it for staining. First I put on a coat of wood conditioner. The same product I used on the end tables. After letting it dry a few days and seeing the beautiful oak color of the wood, I decided against staining and just put on 2 coats of polyurethane. It came out gorgeous.

You can barely see the bevel edge in this photo but it's there. You can see the scratches, which lend to the recycled feel. I love that this piece is not new from a store, it is true furniture.


Here it is in my living room in my former apartment.