Vintage Mantel Mirror

A round mantel mirror is the perfect way to soften out the edges made by a fireplace. This vintage mirror was thrifted and DIYed to fit perfectly in this space.

After our initial living room makeover involving paint, I’ve been changing a few things out. And that includes one simple change to our fireplace mantel.

Can you spot the difference? If you said that huge round mirror, then you’re right!

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THE BACK STORY

Last summer, I packed the kids up for a quick day trip to a huge antique festival. We were so pumped and enjoying the windows down, fun music blaring, and snacks galore. And then: a warning light came on my van. I freaked out because I’d never seen this light before and had one of my kiddos look it up in the owner’s manual. It’s so long ago that I don’t remember the exact light, but I knew it was not good.

We arrived soon after that and I called our auto shop: which was now over an hour away. They suggested I stop at a local auto parts store and have them run the code to fully diagnose the problem. With that information, I could decide whether to drive my minivan home or not.

Instead of leaving right away, we spent two hours exploring and basically closed the place down. While browsing, I came across a massive round mirror. It had come off a dresser that was nowhere in sight. I asked how much and was told, “$5.” Ummm…sold! Yeah, it had some scratches, was enormous, and I had nowhere for it to go. But it came home with us anyway. It really was the only thing I ended up bringing home.

Back to my minivan story. We got in, prayed really hard, started the engine up and guess what? No warning light! We all cheered and drove home.

Fast forward 7 months and I wanted to change up the look of our mantel. Specifically, I wanted to add something round. It felt like there were too many squares and rectangles going on and rounded edges would smooth things out.

DRESSER MIRROR TURNED MANTEL MIRROR

I actually bought a round mirror from Target. And on the way home, I suddenly remembered this mirror stashed away in our basement. Needless to say, I returned the newly purchased mirror and worked on my, “pretty please” to James. Once again, it was a case of me asking him to make something happen that would need some creativity.

The first step was to cut off the bottom piece {that would have attached the mirror to the dresser}.

On the back, the vertical slat was already in place. James added two pieces to stabilize that vertical slat that was now loose after the bottom piece was removed.

His solution to hang this mantel mirror was to cut the top horizontal piece of wood at an angle. This would securely sit on top of two screws in the wall.

HANGING THE MANTEL MIRROR

First, he measured the diameter of the mirror. {31″}

The next step was the find the middle of the wall.

As well as determining the appropriate height for the screws.

In case you are wondering how the mirror stays attached to the wood backing. It’s with these brackets: