DIY Faux Gold Mirror Makeover

Hello Remodelaholics! I’m Tasha and I blog over at Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body about thrifty DIY projects and home renovations. You may remember some of my other contributor posts, like the one about how to transform an outdated, cultured marble vanity with concrete or my popular post about how we built a wood screen to hide the ugly utility boxes on the side of our house. I am very much a Remodelaholic and I always feel like I am in very good company over here 🙂

But sometimes even Remodelaholics need quick and easy projects, and that is what I have for you today! I have fallen in love with rich, gold finishes lately. When I was shopping for mirrors for our twin girls’ bathroom renovation, I fell in love with some gorgeous, but very expensive gold options. There are some great ways to add touches of gold to your decor, like this DIY gold leaf tabletop. And you’ll find tons of other simple DIY gold accent projects in this post.

Since I couldn’t afford the gold mirrors I fell in love with, I decided I had to come up with a way to create gold mirrors myself! So, I bought these super budget-friendly commercial mirrors. They were a great size and weight, but they were silver. I didn’t want to use gold leaf, since that can be delicate and I knew these mirrors would need to stand up to toothpaste splatters, etc. And I also haven’t had fantastic luck with long-term durability of metallic spray paints. So this time, I used something different and it worked like a charm. We were able to transform those commercial mirrors into upscale beauties in less than 10 minutes per mirror! Read on to learn how to do it yourself.

DIY Gold Mirror Makeover

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Materials needed:

Mirror with a metal frame (these are the exact mirrors we used)
Rub N’ Buff in Antique Gold (one tube will be MORE than enough)
Painter’s tape (optional)
Amy Howard At Home Dark Wax
Amy Howard At Home Dust of Ages
Paper towels or old t-shirt

Steps:

1) If you want to be extra careful, use painter’s tape to tape off around the frame of your mirror. I did this for our first mirror. I decided to wing it with the second mirror and found that I was able to easily scrape any stray Rub N’ Buff off the mirror with a razor.

2) Use a paper towel or old t-shirt to gently rub the Rub N’ Buff along the metal frame. I applied two light coats (you won’t quite get full coverage with only one coat). Since it is actually a wax product, it dries very quickly (and is far more durable and less messy than spray paint).

3) If desired, apply Amy Howard At Home Dark Wax and Amy Howard Dust of Ages to give it an authentic looking patina.

That’s it! Easiest tutorial EVER! We finished these mirrors about 4 months ago and so far they are holding up perfectly. I was worried that using glass cleaner on the mirrors would affect the gold finish, but it hasn’t! Check out the results.