Mirror, Mirror

With the holidays approaching I'm seeing a lot of white, shimmer and glitter. Here's our contribution. A white, shimmery, lux-looking, but affordable piece. This entire project cost was around $15. I love projects like that!!

if you're like me, sometimes, you just need to do something a little different now and then. If you DIY long enough, eventually, you'll find yourself branching out to try new things. This was one of those projects. Ready for a break from detail painting such as our Count Your Blessings Cabinet - http://bit.ly/GC3TFg

This is one of the projects where the idea was great, but the actual process made us break a sweat. It was a LOT of work. I have to admit that we did do another project very similar to this not too long after. Some of us just don't learn very easily.

That was the case with this vintage round coffee table. We found it in a local antique shop in the clearance section. As you can see, the top was leather, but had seen much better days. It was ripped up and had burn holes through it.

The first step in this undertaking was to remove what was left of the leather top. That was a job!!

See that metal strip on the edge of the top? It just screamed to have something inset. The first thing that came to mind was mirror. Mirror? Glass? Yep!!

The mirror was purchased at our local Restore. If you have a Habitat for Humanity Restore in your area, you should visit it. They are a trash picker's dream!

The base was cleaned, primed and given a coat of Valspar Snowcap White.  This was antiqued with a glaze of medium gray, just enough to bring out the details and the fluting.

Old shower curtain, hammer, mirror...add a little stress relief and, Success! Lots of different sizes of mirror shards. They were laid out on the top in a mosaic fashion. No plan, the pieces just kind of fit like a jugsaw puzzle. They were glued onto the top with a tile glue smeared on the back. Once it dried overnight, an unsanded grout was mixed and pushed in to the cracks. 

Now, not following directions is more my hubby's style, but I thought that cleaning the majority of the grout off and letting it set up overnight before really cleaning the glass was a good idea. NOT!! The glass had a dull coating on it. What I didn't realize was that the grout has a plastic mixed into the powder. Once it dried on the glass, it took a razor scraper, lots of blades and hours of time to carefully scrape the plastic coating off of the mirror. Lesson learned!

But the final piece was gorgeous! The grout was sealed and it was ready to find a home. 

I hope its new owner will make use of it during the holidays!