Mirror Advice, Stat!

This time last week, right before I realized Irene was really going to pose a threat to my house, I sat down to write about my bathroom mirrors. More correctly, I sat down to write about the bathroom mirrors I hope will someday be mine. Because currently, I have none. This is making my attempts to make myself look presentable in the morning a challenge. So, as a tantalizing little morsel of trivia, if you are in coastal Carolina and see a mom talking to herself with poorly-applied make-up or hair that looks amiss somehow, it might be me.

Last year, my sister and brother-in-law bought a house that was in a sorry sort of state, virtually gutted it, and turned it into something really beautiful. It took the better part of a year and, I suspect, involved a kind of stress that would leave lesser people, a.k.a. me, mute and with a life-long glazed-over facial expression. They, however, personified the concept of grace under pressure, and now could likely win awards with the before and after transformation pictures.

We chose to take the route that leads to significantly less glory and less insanity and bought a house with no major, major problems. Instead, it just needed a large number of what I would define as small to moderate adjustments or additions. Like, one bathroom needed a toilet, and the upstairs needed functioning lights, and basically all the doors needed handles, and the kitchen needed appliances, and the walls still need all gashes and holes filled before I scrub them down with a bleach-like substance (to remove all the “scary” that’s currently affixed to them) and then repaint them, and the carpet in the laundry room with its own distinct funk still needs to be sent to a place far, far away from Earth. Things like that.

So, among other things, now that the hurricane has past and we still have our home, we have turned our attention back to the fact that we also need mirrors in our master bathroom. We have a double vanity, so we need either two smaller mirrors, with one for each sink, or one large mirror that covers the whole space. I’m leaning toward two separate mirrors, preferably rectangular-shaped, because based on my scattered research of framed mirrors, I’m guessing procuring two smaller mirrors will be less time-consuming and costly than one large one, as a large one would probably end up being a custom job.

I love, love, love shell mirrors, but look at my vanity tops.

I like them, but they are dark, dark, dark. Most of the shell mirrors I like are light, light, light, like this one.

See? I just don’t see it coming together all that well. Plus, the ones I’ve seen in stores around here tend to be too small and are often rounded. The space from the bottom of the light fixture above the sink to the backsplash is 30” x 48”. If all else fails, I may just choose a mirror with a brushed nickel frame, to coordinate with the light fixtures I’m just ambivalent enough about to leave as is. Plus, the ones I’ve seen at some of the big box stores are a little more in line with my budget than the shell mirror.

And then, I see this mirror.

And I think, maybe I should redo the whole bathroom around a larger version of these. You know, like the Kohler commercial where the woman says she’d like to design a bathroom around a faucet. But this is a thought I will not be sharing with LCB, who’s already spent way more time with his tools the last three weeks than a man who’s not in construction as a profession should. Oh, no. My mama didn’t raise a fool. So, I’ll wallow in my bathroom void of all shells and originality.

The bottom line is, we are reaching the point where we need to do something soon. LCB and I are currently sharing a small mirror that we have propped up against the wall, and it’s not good. He has this thing about not liking to breathe in my hairspray (so odd, don’t you think?), but he always seems to suddenly need the mirror to shave right when I’m doing my hair. So, I spray my hair (because without any product in my hair it becomes a gargantuan mess of unkemptness within 37 seconds) and LCB breaks into a round of gagging complete with interjections of editorializing on why my hairspray is wrong for existing. This is then followed by mutual looks of unfriendliness, and it’s all not good. So, it’s probably not worth all the strife for what can and will likely be solved with a lackluster purchase from a big box store.

Still, if any of you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. I’m one of those people who watches HGTV and it all seems so obvious what should be done on the shows, but then in my own real life, I’m often clueless, especially if I have to work with the aspects of the room already in place.

So if you have an idea or an actual mirror to recommend, hit me up with it!