I just bought a house, and overall it’s pretty great and in move-in condition, but there are some smaller things I want to spruce up. One thing is that in both the master and guest bathrooms, there are big mirrors with dirty edges at the bottom. Apparently it’s from water damage.
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with water damaged mirrors. I’ve seen some posts online about people covering up water damage with a big frame, like on this blog here, but I wasn’t sure if the water damage could spread further past the frame. Also I have basically zero experience with wood working so I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for me to make a frame and put it up.
Or I thought I could make get the mirrors taken down and put up smaller framed mirrors, but I’m not sure what it looks like behind the mirror and how much work it would be to get that looking good. If the mirror is water damaged, does it mean that the wall behind looks even worse?
If anyone had any advice, or can link to a blog or something that would be helpful for a home renovation dummy like me, I’d appreciate it. I am capable of doing some DIY stuff, but for bigger or more complicated things I am willing to call up and pay for experts to do work.
How big are the mirrors? How are they framed now? What kind of wall are they mounted on?
Any glass shop can cut you a mirror to size to replace the old ones. A wood frame can be incredibly simple to make if it’s just 4 boards nailed to the wall around the mirror. Just depends on what you want it to look like.
I’m thinking if there’s water damage to the mirrors you should start by taking them down and assessing the wall condition, and look for other damage in the bathrooms.
Think you should up a pic of your mirror if you want good feedback.
But also, how old is this house/mirror? Your blog example mentions the mirror is original to the house, so that “water damage” could be 30-40 years worth. A thickish frame could hide another 20 years worth, so that’s still a relatively long term fix.
Both mirrors are fairly big; I don’t have the dimensions but I’d guess around 3 or 4 feet tall by 6 or so feet long. They are not framed, just held on by mirror clips. I believe the wall is just basic drywall.
I figured I’d probably call up some glass shops and see what they could do and what prices would be, but thought I’d first ask here if anyone had any experience.
I had a very thorough inspector go through the house before the end of my option period, he didn’t find any mold or other water damage. I think there’s some caulking I need to do around the tub and other minor fixes, but no other big damage.
I’ll try to get a picture posted later today or tomorrow.
The house is 12 years old, and the mirrors are probably original to it. That’s a good point that even if the water damage does spread, a frame could cover it up for a long time.
New mirrors are very cheap at diy stores. You could replace your big mirrors with a few smaller ones from the diy store, to get the same surface. The seam is not that noticable.
Easier is just ignoring the damage. Its not like the mirror or the wall behind it gets rotten or so. Its just the metal on the back of the glass that rusts and peels a little. Safe to ignore. Put a sticker on it, or have fun with a mirror decal.
If you do frame it, just make sure it fairly simple or at least smooth surfaced. Don’t need the hassle of cleaning nooks and crannies of soap and toothpaste residue.
Eta: I disagree with above. Seams are noticeable to me.
Also called iron rust. the red or orange coating that forms on the surface of iron when exposed to air and moisture, consisting chiefly of ferric hydroxide and ferric oxide formed by oxidation.
We just went through this before selling a house. An employee of a local glass shop came to our house and took the mirror down from the master bath (a side job for him). He was supposed to come back another time to trim the edge down, but that never happened. A glass shop could have trimmed and smoothed the edge if we had taken the mirror in. Instead, we patched & painted the wall and hung modern framed mirrors (over dual sinks). Our original mirror had been glued to the wall, so minor patching was necessary. We didn’t have enough space between the mirror and the backsplash for a frame. There was no water damage to the wall.
As a residential carpenter I would simply replace the mirror. I’ve installed a lot of mirrors and framed a few existing ones. If you are trying to conceal the edge of the mirror with a frame you either need to rabbet the frame or make a spacer to fit behind it. You also have to worry about attaching the frame without damaging the mirror, and keeping all your miters tight and presentable.
Way less work to pull the old mirror and either install a new one or hang a framed mirror if you like that look. There is probably mastic glueing the mirror to the wall as well as the clips. If so the paper on the drywall will probably take a beating but if its getting covered that doesn’t matter much. If you can feel the mirror move when you release the top clips - yay no mastic.
If you aren’t handy calling the glass shop to do it is a good idea. Wont be particularly cheap.
First, I assume the water damage is from water splashing up on the mirror, getting behind it and eating away at the mirror surface on the back of the mirror…right? If there’s something else going on, you should deal with that first.
Second, I’m not that handy, but trim is cheap and I don’t see why you couldn’t take a shot at it yourself. Get the some PVC trim, cut it at 45s and, IMO, glue it onto the mirror itself. This’ll be a lot easier than mounting it on the wall and trying to overlap it onto the mirror. You’ll have to chisel/route out the area where the clips are, but it’s doable. Dry fit it first since you’ll only have one chance with glue.
Another other option is, as was mentioned, two (or more) smaller mirrors, picked up from Home Depot/Lowes. But if your sink is in the middle, that could be awkward.
The third option is to call a glass shop and get a quote for a new one. If it’s a big mirror (and you said it was), I’d ask how much it is to have them deliver and install it. I can’t imagine it would be that much. But even a hundred or so would be, IMO, more than worth you trying to get it home and wrangle it into place. Let the pros do it and let them be responsible if it gets broken in the process. They’ll probably even take the old one with them when they leave.
Here’s another option I just thought of. I too am awful at wood working, really, just terrible. You could get a nice matching piece of frame and just run it across the bottom. If it’s a neutral color (like white PVC), it probably won’t be that noticeable) but will hide the stains. As (some) people say, you don’t notice clean, you do notice dirty. People probably won’t notice random piece of trim on the bottom of the mirror, but they will notice the water damage. Doing it this way will require only one straight cut and some careful gluing. That’s miles easier than 8 miter cuts, lots of measure, lots of lining up and lots of wondering if you should have called a carpenter.
I don’t see a picture of your mirror, but I had a similar problem- a huge mirror with water damage to the area that was closest to the sink. My damaged area was a little over 2 feet long, but only about 1-2 inches high at worst.
The mirror was too large and expensive to replace for such a small amount of damage and I wasn’t confident it could be re-cut, trimmed, or refinished successfully. It’s old, thick and heavy, and is otherwise a pretty nice mirror.
I just remounted the mirror upside down (moving the damage to the top). The damaged area is now hidden behind the new light fixture which overhangs the mirror a little. You would have to look for it to find it now.
My new counter top has a back splash which moved the mirror up and away from the sink by a few inches compared to its previous mounting. I also moved the mirror very, very slightly above that back splash with some spacers and added a light bead of waterproof sealant to prevent water damage in the future. The back splash (well, the spacers, really) is the bottom ‘mounting bracket’ now.
Ca3799 has a nice professional solution. Speaking of light fixtures, you might want to replace the fixtures anyway, with led lightning. Led lights come in stick- on tape, or on smaller lights that could be part of a mirror frame. Look for the kind of lights that go under kitchen closets. Like - Search - IKEA
And it is always a good idea, when hanging a mirror in a bathroom, to put some silicone caulk below and against the silver backside. The moisture never comes through the glass, but always from condensation droplets accumulating on the bottom rim and then worming between the silver and the protective paint on the back of the mirror.