So we just finished a wonderful new project that I am SUPER excited to share with everyone! We have been wanting to dress up our very builder-grade guest bathroom. We had already painted the bathroom blue, hung some accessories, and added a new shower curtain, but the bathroom still lacked some major pizazz
Guest Bathroom Before Tiled Mirror, but After Paint, New Shower Curtain, and Accessories
This brings us to my lucky break! A wonderful friend of ours, local contractor, Doug Tolson (of Doug Tolson Construction) had some left-over Recycled Aluminum Tiles. Lucky for me, I snagged them right away! Really I was speedy, and it was a close-call even getting them. Unfortunately, while I was stoked to get them, I was smack-dab in the middle of studying for law school exams, so I had to put off creating with my gift. But, finally we had time, so, after much thought and deliberation, we decided to make a tile-framed mirror for our bathroom! Sure, we could have used our existing mirror for this project, and just tiles around it, but we really just wanted more BANG for our buck effort. Heres the final product:
Mirror Updated!
We are sooooo thrilled with the results. Unfortunately, pictures were just really hard to snag because of the dimensions of our bathroom, but hopefully you get the gist. Also, by no means is this bathroom complete. Next on the TO DO list for this bathroom-
- changing out the awful bar-light fixtures to something more sleek and modern
- stain/paint the vanity either chocolate or black
- change out the countertop to some kind of light color stone, like this
- and then finally, use the remaining aluminum tiles as the backsplash to play off the light countertop!!!
Im soooo excited can you tell?!?!?! 
In case you were wondering how to make a tile mirror (it took me a lot of online research to find the right method for us), this is how we did it STEP by STEP:
- Buy the proper size mirror for your space (we went with a 2436, beveled edge mirror from Lowes).
- Lay out the tiles around your mirror to determine best layout and proper spacing. For ours, we decided to do a double row around both mirrors, with a married center row (we didnt have enough width over the vanity to do a double row around each mirror separately).
- Once you have the layout down, choose the proper mounting method!!! Choosing the proper method is essential to the project. After much back and forth, we decided to go with a plywood mounting method. To do this, cut a sheet of plywood down to size (to allow for a quarter-inch of the tiles to hang over on each side) and then primer the wood on both sides for moisture protection- see the primered wood below.
- After the primer dries, snap a chalk-line down the middle to properly align the tiles down the center. Start by tiling the middle two rows along the chalk line. To secure the tiles to the wood, we used Liquid Nails, as we were butting the tiles up to one another with no space between.
- Next, place the mirrors onto the plywood using Mirror Adhesive by Liquid Nails. This is absolutely essential because if you do not use the proper adhesive when mounting a mirror, the adhesive will eat away at the coating on the back of the mirror and it will look very bad.
- After both mirrors are place, then tile the remainder of the frame using the Liquid Nails and the tile pattern that youve already laid out in Step 2.
- Allow to cure for at least 24 hours.
- After curing, flip the mirror over and apply a line of liquid nails to the back of the tiles and the edge of the plywood for extra security.
- Lastly, secure proper hanging hardware. We went with the new Hangman Track System! Traditional hardware was not strong enough in the plywood, nor secure enough for the weight of the newly mounted mirrors. But, the Hangman system was perfect and extremely easy to use!!! For the Hangman system, you will mount the hanging hardware on the back of the mirror and then on the wall. Afterward, we just set the mirror on the wall-mounted track and we were all DONE!!!
We are so thrilled with the result. It made such an impact and was a wonderful D-I-Y project!