Mirror, mirror…
Latest Interiors reflects on how to transform your home
Want to lighten and brighten your home?
For a quick style trick, invest in a statement mirror. As well as the obvious benefits (somewhere to check your teeth/hair/whatever before a date, handy for identifying members of the undead – oh no, hang on, Halloween has definitely passed on for another year), mirrors bring space and light wherever they’re placed. You’d be surprised at how versatile a bit of glass can be.
On the wall
The obvious spot for a decorative mirror. And, whatever the spot, Latest Interiors is pretty confident that big is better. A large, vintage mirror doubles the feeling of space in a narrow corridor or tiny room, and anything small is wasted in larger spaces. Go large, and save smaller mirrors for specific tasks such as the bathroom cabinet, shaving, or to reflect light in a small, dark corner.
Vintage (or vintage-style) mirrors do make the best statement pieces and work with both traditional and modern interiors. Modern, unadorned mirroring works best in contemporary settings.
Or through the looking glass?
Decoration aside, you can use task mirrors in lots of other ways to add light and space to your home. Mirrored splash-backs in the kitchen brighten up tired units (and allow you to keep an eye on the kids while preparing supper). Mirrored furniture, popular in the 20s and 30s, is in vogue again. A reflective coffee, dining or occasional table adds sparkle to living space, and mirrored vanity units increase the available light as you ready yourself for the day. Garden walls and borders also benefit from mirrored panels as they reflect flowers, foliage and light. Followers of Feng Shui believe that, depending on how they are used, mirrors can pull people into a friendly space, or push negative forces away.
Of course, you can go too far: Latest Interiors has seen mirrored stairs (about which we were not sure: can’t quite shake images of schoolboys trying to see things they shouldn’t), headboards (ditto), and whole rooms (too much information: no-one really wants to know what they look like from behind)… but we’re sure you don’t need convincing. To get it right, identify the dark spots in your home and add one or two large, decorative mirrors, combine them with some task-based mirroring and you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes. You’ll also find that your posture improves, and you brush your hair more often.
May 25th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
As I’m sure you are aware, placing a new modern mirror in your room, will make you room look alot bigger, due to all the reflect light. It can really be the difference between a box room and a spaceous room.