Repurposing

I love to find new uses for old things.  In this case, it was a new use for a new thing, but you get my drift, right.  We needed a mirror for our master bathroom.  I called around to various places about having one cut to fit the space and installed.  It was over $300 and that wasn't really the look I was going for anyway.  Always looking for ways to save, I decided to buy a large mirror at a local home supply store (Home Emporium).  I bought the largest mirror they had for $99.  The measurements on the mirror said 60"x 40" which was exactly what I was looking for.  I remember seeing and it thinking "this is too good to be true".  Well, it was too good to be true.  I get home and with the help of my husband, we prepare to hang the mirror.  Being the smart guy he is, he decided to double check the measurements before drilling any holes in the wall. Turned out, the mirror itself was 60"x40", but the frame around the mirror added another 5" to each side.  My husband is not quite as cheap frugal as me, so his response was "just order one to fit".  Not wanting to see a perfectly good deal go to waste, I immediately began to remove the frame around the mirror.  He goes with it, because he knows by now not to try to talk me out of something once my mind is made up.

We carefully removed the mirror from the too large frame, applied construction adhesive to the back, and stuck it right on the wall over our bathroom vanity.  As I said in this post, we had someone cut leftover door and window trim to fit around the mirror at a cost of $20.  A nice custom mirror for $120.  Not too shabby.

Here's the finished product.

We were left with a perfectly good 70"x50" black frame.  We decided to hang the frame in our mudroom.  I painted inside the frame with magnetic paint and then chalkboard paint.  It makes a great place to display the kids' artwork and write messages.

This is how it turned out.

If you have some old items sitting around collecting dust and you think there's no use for, e-mail me a picture.  I'm sure I can help you come up with some way to repurpose it.