Decorating with Mirrors

When we went to Doyle's to pick up the painting we purchased they were already setting up for their next auction, Doyle @Home coming up March 10th. I was struck by all the decorative mirrors in the sale (no catalogue on line yet), and it got me thinking about decorating with mirrors. Just like pictures on the wall, mirrors add interest and character to any room, whether it 'needs' a mirror or not!

Decorators will tell you where you should have a mirror, but anywhere in a house or apartment can benefit from a really decorative mirror or two. We have friends who had a long hallway and they lined it with 5 or 6 mirrors of different styles and sizes. It looked great.  Auctions are great places to find them.

A few examples in my own home include the following:

Our dining area is part of a living/dining room. We wanted to define the space within the larger room and we used three devices to do that. We build a shell cabinet in to the wall, we put up a chandelier, and we added a mirror.

 

We bought the 18th century Georgian mirror at an auction at Bonham's in London when we lived there. I had always wanted a Georgian mirror like this and we looked at many auctions and even bid a few times before we had a success. We also checked out retail stores and antiques fairs for examples and pricing, and feel we got a good price for this purchase.

Our living area is punctuated by a favorite Venetian style mirror that we bought at Doyle's some years ago. It's one of a pair. Here is the overall context and the mirror itself. 

        

We have not seen that many Venetian mirrors with blue, and liked this one particularly.

A group of pictures on a wall looks even more interesting with a mirror amongst the group, or an interesting mirror can be the focal point of the room.

We purchased this mirror at an auction for very little money ($75). It's just a great looking piece, and now has pride of place at our daughters' house. It really dresses up the living room. No-one will ever know how much it cost.

The upcoming Christie's Interiors auction ( March 2 and 3) has some nice examples, including this one:

  

Christie's: Scandinavian Giltwood Mirror, 18th/19th C. Est. $1,000 - $1,500

The recent Doyle's Belle Epoque sale had some interesting less expensive examples (that went for less than the low estimates and some went unsold).

   

Venetian mirror sold $450                          Neoclassical giltwood sold $450

Both mirrors are pretty big (53" x 30", and 69" x 30" respectively) and would serve as a very nice focal point in a living or dining room, or even a kitchen for that matter to dress it up a bit. They would certainly make a bathroom look glam too!Just think of a mirror as another piece of art.