Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

When my husband and I got married and started combining furniture, there were few pieces of his that made the cut.  Because I just can't get rid of perfectly good mirrors, this mirror, from his childhood, has been hanging in our living room. 

I wish I'd taken a better "before" picture, but as I'm new to documenting my  projects, I need some grace!  We needed to repaint it because, well, the dark wood color just wasn't fitting in to my design scheme, and it had chips from years of being moved around.  (Look in lower right-hand corner and you'll see some chip marks toward base of mirror.)

Anyway, this past Sunday, my husband decided I should paint it-----BLACK.  His suggestion intrigued me, and since we already had black paint on hand, I figured why not! 

So, you know how in this post I said that I've learned to ALWAYS sand before I paint?  Well, because the wood is rather thin on the mirror and the detail is very intricate, I decided to just use "Gripper", a primer we used to help us paint over the horrid tiles in our kitchen.  This primer is the bomb and will stick to any slippery surface!


Priming while drinking a Slurpee

After I primed it with 1 coat of Gripper, I painted on 2 coats of Glidden Onyx satin oil-based paint.  (I prefer oil-based paint when painting furniture because it hides brush strokes better than latex-based paint.) 

I let it sit to dry for a few hours (while we went swimming at my dad's house) and came home and hung it on the wall.  It turned out great and I think it adds the perfect balance to our living room! 

PS- I plan to give you all a full view of the living room (even a before and after tour, but I'm still waiting for my new rug and love seat to come in.  I'm also having a cushion made for the fireplace, but patience friends--there's plenty of time to show you what we've done with the place!)