Mirror, Mirror On the Wall...

At the beginning of this home building process, when we were going over design elements of the house with our builder, there was one small thing that I decided I wanted to do on my own.  A little DIY, if you will.  What was this one, small thing?  The mirror in the half-bathroom.  Easy, right?  I mean, who wants just the standard, unframed oval mirror that would come in the house (no offense to those who have these...they are just fine)?  I figured it was simple enough.  Pick out a cute, framed mirror, hammer a nail in the wall, hang it, DONE.

Well, my visions of mirrors kept growing. Once I started looking for mirrors for the half-bathroom, I thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat to pick out some pretty mirrors for our master bathroom?"  I don't know what caused the sudden fascintation with mirrors all of a sudden.  All I know, is that I was convinced that I could pick out THE perfect mirrors, and that our bathrooms would look like something out of a catalog.  Since I decided we would do the mirrors in the half-bathroom and the master, it was only a matter of time until I decided we could do the main bathroom as well.  Naturally.  I figured it couldn't be that hard to find a large framed mirror with the exact approximate dimensions of 36" by 64".  Of course, I also thought it would be equally as simple to hang said mirrors.  After all, I have watched some Handy Manny in my day.

So began our trips to Home Goods.  On my first trip, I found a mirror that I loved for the half-bathroom.  Sweet.  Check off the ol' list.  I also got two mirrors for the master bathroom that I thought would look nice (at this point I didn't really have any particular measurements picked out for these...amateur, I know).  I couldn't find the big mirror I was hoping for for the main bathroom, but I figured we had some time, so it was put on the back burner for a while.

Cameron and I went back a couple of weeks later to look for that large framed mirror I was envisioning.  We found something that we thought would work, and in the process, found another pair of mirrors that I decided I liked a little better for the master bathroom.  So we bought them all, brought them home to mull it over for a while, and returned the first set of mirrors. 

We quickly realized that the big mirror, if hung at a decent height for an average-sized adult, would require Miley to have nothing short of a step ladder when she needed to see herself in the mirror in her bathroom.  The mirror just wasn't tall enough to accomodate both adults and my little people.  We decided to hang onto the mirror, as a full-length mirror for our new master bedroom, but we were back to square one for the main bathroom.  After a few more days, I also decided that our newly acquired master bath mirrors were just too big.  I had some measurements in mind at this point, because I wanted to have the perfect medium - mirrors that were small enough to have some distinct separation (otherwise, defeating the purpose of separate mirrors, am I right?), but large enough to be functional for everything that you use a bathroom mirror for, and not give the appearance of "all wall" where the mirrors are.  A much more difficult task than I had originally anticipated.

So, we made a few more trips to Home Goods, much to Cameron's dismay (seriously, these mirrors have been virtually the only sore spot for us in this whole home building experience!), took back the "too big" mirrors, and eventually came away with something that we thought MIGHT work.  At this point, I had lost all confidence in my mirror-choosing abilities.  I just had no clue what size of mirror would look the best.  Not to mention, all the large mirrors we would find for the main bathroom ended up being TOO big.  So what did we end up doing?  Buying your standard, unframed mirror from Home Depot.  Yup.  the same exact type our builder would have provided for us.  Only this one was 36" by 60".  The biggest we could find, yet 12" short of the length of the vanity.  But we figured we just had to get these mirrors hung, and if we hated the way any of them looked, we could eventually switch them out.

A couple days before we were allowed to hang our mirrors, all I could think about was what could I have possibly been thinking volunteering to do our own mirrors?  I was sure my pretty bathroom dream was about to come crashing down (figuratively, and maybe literally!).

The moment of truth finally arrived and we were able to go into our house last night and hang the mirrors.  After about half an hour of trying to figure out how to hang the large mirror, Cameron realized that I didn't know what I was doing (he thought since this was my grand idea, that I had all the know-how...I guess Handy Manny didn't pay off?) and I realized Cameron didn't know what he was doing (I thought surely my hunk of a man must know how to hang mirrors?).  So after a quick trip to Menards to pick up some drywall anchors, and a little more discussion we finally figured out what we were doing.

It actually ended up being pretty easy...the toughest part was just getting everything lined up, and making sure the wire on the two mirrors in the master bathroom was even.

And you know what?  WE LOVE THEM.  In fact, the mirror in the main bathroom couldn't have been any bigger, because of an outlet on one side (I had thought for sure it was going to be too short and just look terrible).  The mirrors in the master bathroom ended up looking like how I had pictured the whole time.  I was SO relieved.

My very own Handy Manny Cammy

The final result (our friends, and soon to be neighbors, were out for a walk and popped in to say hi!)!  Sorry about the funky lighting...all we had was a shop light and it was getting dark at this point...

Our little assistant, picking up all the trash.

We ended up not putting up the mirror in the half-bathroom, becaue our pedestal sink wasn't in yet and we didn't want to just slap the mirror up any which way on the wall, you catch my drift?  Smarties, we are.  :)

The moral of this whole, long, drawn out story?

Don't ever ask to do your own mirrors if you are building a house.  Not. Ever.  Lesson learned.  But, if you do, I now know how to hang mirrors and could totally help (I think).

But, even after a million trips to Home Goods and home improvement stores, all out brawls mild disagreements with the hubby, and days of worrying, it can still be pretty fun when it all turns out in the end.  :)

Just remind me not to get involved with out next supposed DIY...the LANDSCAPING.  Oy.

Oh, and another exciting thing?  Our granite countertops are in!  I took some pictures after our three hours of mirror-hanging fun (yes, that is really how long we were there when all was said and done), but since it was getting dark outside, and we have NO lights in our house the pictures didn't turn out that great (as in, the colors are a little off, and our walls aren't really weird and stripey like they appear)...I will get some better photos soon!