Chevron Mirror Makeover

Hello lovelies!

How was your weekend? Mine involved de-rusting and respraying our rather neglected BBQ, and popping it under a new rain cover to hopefully prolong its flavour-enhancing life for a few more summers, then digging over four huge flower beds in the garden and taking two whole carloads of weeds to the tip. As y'all know, I hate gardening (due to the creepy crawlies, mostly), but bribing myself with lots of mini Mars bar ice-creams helped a little.

As a break from chores, I went on a stroll round the local fleamarkets/ antique shops to find a mirror for our bedroom. I've spent about two years trying to find The Perfect Mirror for our Moroccan-themed bedroom, because I couldn't decide which style to buy and didn't want to make a costly mistake. I'm a big fan of a fancy gold frame, but our house is getting pretty full of them. I'd also been eyeing up several mirrors similar to this one from Graham and Green, but couldn't decide if I wanted something more middle eastern instead. 

I found plenty of mirrors I liked, but nothing that made my heart race, until I saw this gem in Rocket St George's new collection. 

Image from Rockett St George

I loved everything about it except 1. the price (£300), and 2. that the white chevrons are made from bone. YUCK. I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite, with my family-of-cows leather sofa, but bone is just a step too far for me. No idea why. So I decided to try and DIY something similar for myself, sans bones. 

As luck would have it, I found the perfect mirror in my favourite antique shop, and managed to haggle them down to £43. Still quite a lot compared to the boot sale bargains I see lovely northern bloggers scooping up by the armload, but round here people don't sell anything for under £30. Tom came and picked up me (and the mirror) in the car. Thankfully, it fit; I'd learnt my lesson from the chest of drawers incident and taken a tape measure with me. 

The mirror was painted a beigey brown, and had already been distressed with some sandpaper (or perhaps by being forced to watch a 10 hour loop of Jeremy Kyle). 

First, I slapped on a coat of white emulsion, then deliberated how best to paint the chevrons. I ended up using the same paint I used to paint my dresser and table lamp, and painting it on with the side of a (new!) washing up sponge so I could get roughly even size lines.

I've accepted the fact that I'll never be a neat and tidy painter, but my attempt at chevrons was so messy even I was surprised. I think I'd've had more luck letting a toddler cover it in potato printing. 

In the end, I decided to make the most of its unique scruffiness, and sand it all back so it looked properly distressed. Like it had been kicking about in the back of a souk for 40 years. After attacking it with a few pieces of sandpaper, it ended up like this: 

It's really brightened up our north-facing bedroom, and it means I can finally see myself head-to-toe when getting dressed in the morning! I certainly won't miss having to run round the house to look in the spare-room mirror, where I can see my top half, then the hallway mirror, where I can see my middle (if I stand on the bottom step), and then the oven door, where I can see my legs. Who knows, maybe I'll even do an outfit post one day(!)

What did you get up to at the weekend? 

Katie xxx