In Part 1, I showed you our distressed shelf. Now for the mirror.

Remember the one I got at an estate sale for 20 bucks? (See it here.) That’s the same mirror I used for this project. Originally it had peeling green paint with pink showing through.I decided to redo it with a white distressed look. I had never done that before. So I started searching online and I found several ways to do it. I used part of one method and then sort of winged it.

I started by sanding the frame. Be sure to cover the mirror so it doesn’t get scratched. (I learned that the hard way. Oops. I really should’ve known better. Luckily it was a small scratch.) The flat part of the frame I was able to easily sand with an electric sander, but the angled edges I had to do by hand. It got pretty tedious so I did it just enough to get the flaky paint off.I then primed the frame using a foam brush. After that, I painted it brown with latex paint I had from a previous project. It took a few coats to get it dark enough. Then, I simply went over the brown paint with white paint using a bristle brush and light strokes — the idea being to let the brown show through a little.After it dried, I sanded parts of the edging and corners by hand to help give it a more distressed look. This might not be the perfect method to distress something, but in the end it achieved the look I was going for.The only thing I bought for this project (aside from the mirror) was a quart of white paint for around $8. Everything else I already had on hand. I always try to use leftover materials when I can to cut down on cost.

As you’ll see coming up in Part 3, I do just that to make over a plain lamp shade.

 

 

 

 

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