Mirrors are a good thing, they reflect light and make a space seem larger, but too much mirror, well it’s just too much. Back when our oldest was taking ballet four times a week and later wanted to teach lessons at home, we turned our basement into a dance studio. It hasn’t been used for that since she went away to college and our other kids are busy with sports so the studio is coming down. That means we have some mirrors to take down.
This is week 4 of the One Room Challenge.
We’re turning our basement family room into a place love to hang out in. See how far we’ve come and the plan in the past weeks.
Removing a Mirror Glued to the Wall
Do you have a dated, old mirror in your home that needs to go? Let me show you how to remove a mirror glued to the wall.
The Carpet Shield Technique
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We decided to use what I’ll call the Carpet Shield Technique to remove our mirrors from the wall because we knew we had put a lot of glue, too much glue on the walls when we installed the mirrors. Call us novice diyers at the time, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Not only did we go over board on the glue we also put in mirror brackets to make sure these k=mirror stayed put. With children using the basement as a dance studio we took every precaution.
The carpet shield sticks to the mirror so that when it breaks the mirror will stay attached to the tape like carpet shield and peel right off. At least that’s what’s supposed to happen.
We pounded in wood shimmies between the mirror and wall to give some leverage and it helped with breaking the mirror.
After we took the hammer to the mirror Jeremy cut a few lines down the carpet shield so that the mirror would come down in a few large chunks instead of one large one.
We had a big carboard box below the mirror to catch the glass as it fell. This made clean up so much easier and I highly recommend doing this if you tackle removing a mirror.
With a little more added scrapping the mirror came off the wall. As you can see the wall was damaged, but we’ll be putting up paneling so this will all be covered.
The box got tapped up and put in the garbage.
Now hopefully this space wills start to come together fast. We’re half way through the One Room Challenge with a lot of things yet to accomplish. Getting this room finished will take each member of our family doing their part. It’s a group effort from the little girls entertaining themselves so we can work, to the boys helping with putting the paneling up. Jeremy usually does the heavy lifting as well as operating the saws. I paint and paint and paint. It’s a family affair!
Do you think we’ll get it all done in time? I just keep thinking, where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at @purehappyhome for updates on our progress.
Whoa! You are brave! I never would have thought to intentionally break the mirrors before removing them. Very helpful tips and step by step instructions. I have an enormous mirror in my bathroom I want to remove . . . hmmm
We couldn’t find anyone to take it and it was cracked so we did our best. Glad it’s over, but totally doable.