Yesterday's AT Daily Email had Maxwell sharing with us his recent installation of a mirror in his dining area. Coincidently, we have a very similar set up in our home as well...
The mirror we used is not as nice as Maxwell's Room & Board one, but it works well for what we wanted. It's actually just one of those inexpensive door mirrors you can get just about anywhere for about $10. We just removed it from the frame and double stick taped it directly to the wall. It fits in perfectly with the horizontal stripe we have going throughout our open living room area. We actually got this inspiration from a stay in one of the "Deluxe room 2" at the Ace Hotel in Seattle. They had a stripe of mirrors on a dark wood wall that we just loved. It really acts almost like another window and as Maxwell mentions, "... A horizontal mirror adds dramatic gesture and accentuates the horizontal movement of the dining table..." and "...Mirrors expand small rooms and allow the light to double its presence."
Click here to see the slideshow of Maxwell's mirror.
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Comments (19)
Ooh. Nice trick. Where is the table from, please? I like.
i like! reminds me of a former colleague who hung a mirror on the wall directly across from his desk, so that he could see the manhattan skyline behind him, each time he looked up from his work.
It does look lovely, but I wouldn't like to keep catching chance glimpses of myself as I eat.
i like the idea but who wants to see a reflection of the frig and the microwave?
Kat1: I was thinking the same thing! A mirror in the little dining area off my kitchen would only reflect ... the kitchen! I've put my dining table in one corner of the living room instead, precisely because I don't want to see the kitchen when I'm entertaining. (I use the little room as a home office instead.)
I used the same principle for my dining area mirror but it's more a mirror "sculpture": Kind of a patchwork of multiple mirrors at various angles so it's mostly just sparkly shots of color and light. instead of a mere reflection of the opposite side of the room.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10854279@N00/
OK so I tried this about 8 months ago, only to wake up to the sound of the mirror crashing to the floor (thankfully it didn't break). I used some "mirror-hanging" tape I found...so much for that.
What kind of tape did you use? How much of it? Is it removable (I rent)?
Does anyone know where to find those great white chairs? Who makes them?
Just because that's the reflection in the photo, doesn't mean it's the reflection from every seat at that table.
would you call that mirror blocking, like color blocking? great idea, subtle and allows use of different surfaces and textures.
regarding mirrors in an eating area, i just had a thought that they use mirrors in nice restaurants all the time to do that bigger space trick!
There's a big "see and be seen" factor to restaurant mirrors. And so people facing walls don't feel shortchanged.
hi bradfjordCA- it's actually an IKEA ROGER chair I painted white, click here for how I did it
i'm not a fan of the mirror over the dining space, in either image. i don't think either reflect anything so special. since i'm not in the rooms though, i cannot tell if they enhance the space. but the image with the clock over the mirror just doesn't work for me. the scale is off, imho. the two together look like competing shapes of relatively equal proportion stuck one on top of the other. the clock alone would be much better or if you must have the mirror, then the mirror alone. Sorry. But to each their own….
This one works because it is just above the heads of the seated diners. And it is integrated into a design, rather than used as wall-filler. I like it very much.
I love this! I had to look several times before I really understood it wasn't a slice cut out of the wall, and integrating it into that stripe is pure genius--I thought the entire thing was a mirror reflecting the room behind.
Definitely a trick I will steal--Thanks!
would be lovely in a hospital room.
The mirror is too high to reflect candlelight, and too low to reflect a chandelier, if there was one. If it was opposite a window with great view, it would be fabulous. Since I can't bear to eat in the kitchen, why would I want to see more of the kitchen?
K T G--
Um, yeah. The people at each seat have a different view. That's how reflected angles work.