Over the weekend, I made my most recent trip to Ikea (twenty-four hours after ‘Black Friday’, no less) and obtained a final box of Lots mirror tiles (plus one spare pack, in case of any further breakages).
This post will tie up all the loose ends with regards to how the project came to a close.
With all the painting done, I could clean up my kitchen and looking at hanging the frame before fitting the glass. I went with a pair of these inexpensive mirror hanging plates on each of the top corners and also added a couple at the bottom, although I later decided not to use them:
For each plate, I drilled out holes behind so that they could be hung over a screw head protruding from the wall. It’s now how you would traditionally use these particular plates but I could not find the better quality ones I know I bought in 2010. I wasn’t easy trying to align everything alone, halfway up a ladder and with an item approximately 1m square but I got there in good time.
I chose to position this mirror directly opposite the real window in this room. It even matches it for height from the floor, with the top of both frames measuring around about 8ft up, while the right-hand edge of this frame is also about 8ft from the end wall.
Before hanging, I measured the painted plywood alone at 12kg in weight. Ikea claim their packs of tiles weigh 2.6kg each, meaning I could add 7.8kg to the total weight of my frame (since I’ve forgotten to measure it again since fitting all of the tiles).
My final four tiles were cut again using the cutting wheel method before tapping on the rear of each tile. I deliberately cut them 2mm narrower than the rest, to compensate for inconsistencies within my frame.
Ikea’s Lots tiles come with these self-adhesive squares, with the idea being that you fit four to the reverse of each tile before fixing them to your chosen surface. Reviews I’d read implied that they are incredibly strong so, I decided not to purchase an adhesive and will see how well they hold up.
One minor niggle is that the bottom-right corner of the wall does not sit flush against the wall – which I assume is simply because the wall isn’t plumb. It’s one thing that may encourage people to realize this is not actually a real window and it’s otherwise fine and unnoticeable, provided I don’t push against it.
I’m really liking the effect of having this reflective panel, which is also in good range of one of my light bulbs, as well as the actual window.
As you’ll see above; the bottom-right pane offers some distortion and it’s possibly because the tile was a bit tight in its opening and required some persuasion for it to fit firmly against the plywood back.
A similar error can be seen in the bottom-left corner but only from the correct angle and distance:
…My kitchen isn’t perfect but it’s not quite that bad!
This won’t be an ideal place for taking selfies though, as it gives the illusion that my neck is a good 2in or 3in longer than actual size!
There we go – my most-recently completed project! :-)
I hope you’ve enjoyed following and that it might inspire you with some ideas and thoughts of your own. If you have any thoughts on how I could use the offcuts of glass (approximately 300mm x 100mm) then please leave a comment below.
