There’s a fairly predictable way we tend to think about where a mirror belongs.
A console in an entrance? Put a mirror above it.
A fireplace? There’s an obvious spot.
A bathroom basin? The mirror goes directly over it.
And quite often, that works perfectly well.
But after designing and working with mirrors for more than 30 years, I’ve learnt that sometimes the most obvious place for a mirror is actually the wrong place.
Before deciding where a mirror should go, I’m much more interested in asking what I want it to do once it gets there.
Does it need to bring light into a darker part of the house? Does the room need depth or movement? Does a very architectural space need something to break up its hard lines? Or could the mirror itself become a piece of sculpture?
These are the questions behind many of the designer mirrors we create at Special Things.
Because choosing a beautiful mirror is only half the decision.
Sometimes the mirror belongs where the light is
I was invited to a client’s home to look at a mirror for an entrance hallway console.
It’s a classic pairing. Console below, mirror above.
But standing there, I looked at the overall entrance and then at what a mirror in that position would actually reflect.
It was simply an ordinary view of the house — an awkward combination of a doorway and parts of another room. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, but there was nothing about that reflection that was going to make the entrance more interesting either.
A mirror can only work with what you give it to reflect.
So rather than forcing one above the console simply because that was the expected place for it, I suggested something quite different.
Put a beautiful piece of artwork there instead.
Something with colour and warmth that could give the entrance some personality — a little vibrancy when you arrive home and a welcoming first impression for someone walking through the door.
That resolved the console.
But it didn’t mean we abandoned the mirror.
Looking further along the hallway, I noticed natural light coming through a doorway from another room with a sizeable window.
That was where the mirror belonged.
By moving it down the hallway, we could catch some of that natural light and bring it back into an area of the house that had less direct light of its own.
And as the day progressed, the reflection changed.
Morning light behaved differently from afternoon light. A bright day gave one effect; an overcast day another. There was movement and variation rather than one static reflection.
The artwork and the mirror ended up doing two completely different jobs.
The artwork brought colour, warmth and personality to the console.
The mirror brought light, movement and depth further along the hallway.
And I think that’s an important distinction.
We often hear that mirrors make rooms lighter, but simply putting a mirror in a dark room doesn’t magically create light.
You have to give the mirror something worth reflecting.
Sometimes that means forgetting where convention tells you the mirror should go and looking instead at what is happening throughout the room.
Sometimes the mirror belongs where the light is — not where convention says it should go.
Breaking the architecture without fighting it
Another project approached the same question from a completely different direction.
This was a beautiful bathroom in Templestowe, with marble running extensively across the walls.
The finishes were very resolved. Beautiful stone, high-end fittings, a minimal basin and tapware, and strong architectural lines.
There was already a lot happening visually because of the natural movement in the marble, but structurally the room was quite controlled — straight lines, hard surfaces and large rectangular sections.
It didn’t need another rectangular element added to it.
We used our Shard mirror.
Shard has an irregular, organic outline. It floats away from the wall rather than sitting completely flat against it, and around its edge are randomly positioned hand-bevelled sections.
In that bathroom, those characteristics became particularly important.
The organic outline interrupted all those straight architectural lines without fighting against the marble.
It gave the eye somewhere else to go.
The organic form of Shard interrupts the strong geometry of the marble without competing with the architecture.
And then the bevels started doing something quite lovely.
As you moved through the bathroom, different sections caught the light. One moment you might see the basin reflected; from another position part of the shower or another section of marble would appear.
At the same time, those irregular bevelled edges caught small flashes of light.
There was almost a sparkle to it.
Not sparkle in an ostentatious sense. It was much more subtle than that.
It reminded me of the way a piece of jewellery or a cut stone changes as you move it in your hand. The object hasn’t changed, but the facets are continually finding light from different directions.
That is partly where the character of Shard comes from.
Against all that beautiful marble, the mirror gave the bathroom something softer and less predictable. It introduced another shape, another layer and a little movement.
And because it floats away from the wall, you also become aware of its depth when approaching it from the side.
The reflection and the shape did the work.
For me, that’s one of the interesting possibilities with designer mirrors in Melbourne homes where the architecture and finishes may already be very strong.
Sometimes the mirror doesn’t need to compete with the interior.
It simply needs to introduce the thing that’s missing.
What if the mirror becomes the sculpture?
There’s another direction I’ve been exploring that takes this idea even further.
Instead of thinking about a mirror as one flat reflective surface, what happens when you start layering mirrors over one another?
Perhaps there are two.
Perhaps three or four.
They could all be rectangular, circular or organic. But they don’t necessarily have to be the same shape at all.
A circle might overlap a rectangle. A softer organic form could sit across something more geometric.
Once you start doing that, you’re no longer simply deciding on the shape of a mirror.
You’re creating a composition on the wall.
And the spaces between those layers become important too.
One mirror sits forward from another. Shadows appear. Reflections overlap. From one position you see one part of the room; move slightly and another reflection begins to appear.
The architecture of the piece changes as you move around it.
That can be particularly interesting in an entrance or an area that doesn’t have much architectural character of its own.
You could hang a colourful artwork there and it may look beautiful.
But a layered mirror can do something different.
It can create the artwork and create depth.
It can bring in light.
It can introduce movement.
And because the reflections are fragmented across different planes, it can make a fairly nondescript wall suddenly feel as though it has architecture.
Reflection doesn’t always have to be bright
Layering also gives us another tool to work with: the character of the mirror itself.
It doesn’t all have to be conventional silver mirror.
We can combine silver with bronze mirror or smoked grey mirror. Two finishes may be enough, or occasionally three might make sense.
Again, I don’t think this should be done simply because we can.
There needs to be a reason.
A full silver reflection can sometimes be very lively. In the right room that’s wonderful, but in another space you may want the main reflection to be quieter.
A smoked or bronze mirror can soften it.
Then perhaps a smaller silver section behind or alongside it catches more light and gives the composition some life.
You’re almost adjusting the volume of the reflection.
Some areas become quieter. Others become brighter.
And when the mirrors overlap, you begin getting fragments rather than one uninterrupted image.
That can be particularly useful when the mirror is positioned somewhere people will pass frequently. You still have enough clear reflection to check your hair, your collar, a dress or your lipstick on the way out — mirrors don’t suddenly have to stop being useful.
But that’s no longer their only job.
The same object can be functional, sculptural and architectural.
That’s the part of designing mirrors I find interesting.
A mirror can create architecture where there isn’t any
When people talk about designer mirrors, the conversation often begins with appearance.
Round or rectangular? Framed or frameless? Timber or colour? Large or small?
Those are perfectly reasonable questions.
But I think there is another question that needs to come before them:
What does the room need?
The hallway needed borrowed light.
The marble bathroom needed something to break its strong geometry without competing with it.
A plain entrance might need depth and architecture, which could come from several layered mirrors rather than one conventional piece.
Three different rooms.
Three completely different reasons for using a mirror.
And that’s why I find it difficult to separate mirror design from interior design.
The wall matters. The furniture matters. The architecture matters. The light matters. What sits opposite matters. Even the way somebody walks through the room matters.
Sometimes moving a mirror a metre along a wall can make more difference than changing the mirror itself.
Sometimes changing from silver to smoked mirror can completely alter the mood.
And sometimes adding another layer turns something reflective into something sculptural.
There isn’t a formula for that.
There shouldn’t be.
The best position may not be the obvious one
I think that’s probably the thought I’d leave people with.
If you’re considering a mirror for your home, don’t immediately ask:
Where should I hang it?
Stand in the room first.
Look at the light.
Look at the architecture.
Look at what’s opposite the wall.
Walk through the space and think about what you’ll see from different positions.
And then ask:
What could a mirror add here that the room doesn’t already have?
Maybe the answer is light.
Maybe it’s depth.
Perhaps it’s movement, softness or another piece of architecture.
Perhaps it’s simply a beautiful reflection.
And occasionally the answer might be that the room doesn’t need a mirror at all.
For me, that’s what designing and placing designer mirrors is really about.
Not filling the obvious blank wall.
Not following a rule about what traditionally goes above a console.
But understanding the room first — and then designing the reflection around it.
Because when the position, reflection, light and mirror all begin working together, you’re no longer simply hanging something on a wall.
You’re changing the way the space behaves.