Easy DIY Tutorial: Adding Trim Around a Giant Mirror (For Renters!)

This post is sponsored by HomeRight.  All opinions are 100% mine.

I wanted to show you what I did yesterday afternoon–which means this is a FAST project!  Also, since this is a post that is sponsored by HomeRight, that means you need to read through to the end, because there’s a giveaway waiting there for you!

OK, so as you know we are currently living in military housing, which means that we can’t do anything permanent to improve our house (see my home tour for this house here).  But that doesn’t mean that it can’t look great–in fact, there are TONS of things that renters can do to make things pretty and homey.  I wrote a huge post on decorating ideas for renters {here}, and another one on customizing a small bathroom/powder room {here}.

Today I’ll show you how I trimmed the GIANT mirror in our master bathroom–and it’s temporary so I can easily pull it down when we move.  It was also under $40–score!

Here’s what it looked like before:

I am not a fan of HUGE mirrors.  If we owned this house, I would pull it down and hang two framed mirrors (and I would use the mirror behind my daughter’s ballet barre).  Since that’s a moot point, I decided to use trim to frame it out.  Lots of people have done this project before, even me, back in the kids’ bathroom in our Nashville house:

Obviously, I used white painted trim around that mirror, and I used my miter saw to cut 45° angles to frame that one.  But, we owned that house and I attached the trim with lots of nails and glue.

For this project, I used a little bit of glue (from a hot glue gun, since it scrapes away so easily), and ONE NAIL!

After measuring my mirror (twice!) to see how big it was, I headed to the store to buy trim.  This time, I opted to buy the no-miter corners.  Here are my supplies:

I shopped at Lowe’s this time.  Here’s the molding that I purchased:

And the corner blocks (they make these in several sizes; they should be just about 1/2″ wider than your molding/trim:

I already had the Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain (in Dark Walnut) their gloss polyurethane, and the HomeRight FinishMax sprayer.

I decided to use my FinishMax Fine Finish HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) Sprayer for this project, instead of the FinishMax Pro, because it was a quick job.  I’ve found that most stains don’t have to be thinned at all; just mixed and sprayed. Since I selected a trim with lots of grooves, I chose the sprayer over a brush, and it saved quite a bit of time.  Can you tell from the spatters that I use this baby all the time?

I applied one coat of stain and then wiped it off after a couple of minutes.  It dried in under an hour and then I used a brush to apply a single coat of polyurethane.  Don’t forget that you need to stain the back of the trim when you’re placing it on a mirror; otherwise you will be able to see the unfinished wood in the mirror’s reflection!

This is an oil-based stain, so I cleaned my sprayer with mineral spirits; you could certainly use a water-based stain and then you would only need to use soap and water to clean up.

I used a dab of hot glue on the backs of the corners, and cut the bottom length of trim so that it fit snugly.  I cut it so well (yay, me!) that I didn’t even need glue to hold it in place.  (You can see that the corner piece is just a hair wider than the trim in this photo)

The two side pieces were next, and again, I just used a touch of hot glue between the trim and the mirror:

The top piece was where I had to use the ONE NAIL. I put it right in the center to hold the trim in place; thinking that gravity would probably defeat hot glue in this case. 🙂  If your trim is particularly thick, you should drill a guide hole for your finish nail so that you don’t split your molding–that is SO frustrating!

I love the way this finishes the room, and when it’s time to move, it will be easy to take a razor blade and just pop the dried glue off the mirror.  The vinyl monogram is another thing I added to break up the vast expanse of this mirror, they’re available in our Etsy shop {here} and I wrote a post about it {here}. It’s obviously completely removable/reversible, too.

You might also have noticed in the mirror’s reflection that I used a curtain rod and plain white curtain panels in front of the soaking tub; I think it finishes the room nicely, and again, I can just take it down when it’s time to move.

Now, as promised, here’s our giveaway for a HomeRight FinishMax Fine Finish Sprayer.  As you get to the entry options, don’t forget that if you’re already doing one of the options (say, you already follow us on Instagram or are subscribed to our emails), then you get a free entry for that, so be sure to click on it.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

••••••

Disclaimer:  We are proud HomeRight Brand Ambassadors, and every month they give me a product to try and give away.  All opinions are 100% mine.  Also, some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  If you purchase through these links, we will earn a small commission, but you don’t pay a penny more!

 ••••••

{Linking up to:  2 Bees in a Pod}

Thanks for stopping by!