One of the weirder things about our bathroom, is that the only mirror (also a medicine cabinet) is not over the sink. Its actually about 3 feet to the left of the sink. Where you literally have about 10" to stand between the toilet and built in hamper and wall in order to not get toothpaste all over your face. So what is over our sink? A big fat window. So that our lovely neighbors can watch us brush our teeth I suppose.
You can see how we frosted it here. That way we can still let light in without that awkward moment when your neighbors go out to get their newspaper and you are stepping out of the shower in the buff. That never happened, but it could have.
Derek was very firm that he didn't want to permanently block the window with a mirror. You know in case we have a fire and all of the 26 other windows, and 2 doors are completely blocked and this 15" x 24" opening is our only option. We don't want to take any chances here.
So I knew that a captains mirror would be the perfect solution and started hunting down the best option that wasn't too big, or too nautical, or too convex.
one | two | three | four | five | six
I was getting a bit of sticker shock considering most of the mirrors I found were in the $200-300 range. When I stumbled on this mirror from Target for $29, I thought it was too good to be true. But honestly, I really liked the black metal since I knew we'd be adding black accents throughout the house and it would help tie everything together. When it arrived I could see why it had been so inexpensive. The strap was made of a cheap-o rubbery plastic material that was already cracking at the fasteners. Considering I really didn't want a broken mirror to deal with, I knew that I had to replace the strap with something a bit more durable. Also since the lowest anchor point we have to work with was the top of the window frame, the strap caused the mirror to be about a foot too short.
I headed to a local craft store to see what my options would be for the strap. I needed something strong, and easy to fasten back onto itself without worrying that the mirror would fall to it's death one day. After experimenting with several different options, I ended up settling on some black velcro. I know. So glamorous. I used my mad geometry skills to figure out how long the strap needed to be in order to lower the mirror to an appropriate teeth brushing height. I then doubled that distance so that I could fold over the velcro onto itself creating one big loop that was extra strong.
I then re-laced the new velcro loop through the existing fasteners on each side of the mirror and hung it from the top of the window frame with the black hook that came with the mirror.
Now that we have two mirrors, we do a little tango every morning of who gets to use what mirror. After almost a year now, have mastered the coreography. The one on the left is reserved for small tasks (i.e.: contacts, face creams, makeup, etc.), while the mirror on the right is for more exciting activities like teeth brushing, hair straightening, and beard brushing.. you know tasks that require lots of elbow room.
Eventually we might remove the mirror on the left, and just have a solid door on the medicine cabinet. I mean. A girl can dream.