I made a mosaic-ed mirror all by myself (okay, I had help)

I’d like to pretend that I’m handy and can do things for our house. But, the thing is, that would be totally pretend. I can use a level and a hammer like nobody’s business and even the power drill and screwdriver, but to make things with those tools? No dice.

Now? I know how to tile. Turns out, it’s not that hard at all (maybe this is pretend tiling, but I put tile down and grout on it, so I call it tiling).

The goal was to make a mirror with mosaic tile around it. Like with actual grout and a trowel (I’m certain I’ve never used one of these before…turns out it was better to use my hands anyways, but I did hold it in my hand first).

I learned how to do this at Home Depot at their DIH (that’s Do It Herself) workshop. I had no idea they do these monthly (the third Thursday of the month) at all Home Depot stores. We started with a mirror that was marked off so we knew where the tile went. If I did this at home, I’d tape off the middle part, too so I didn’t worry about getting grout on it and scratching the mirror.

Then we used sandpaper and roughed up the mirror to give the tiles a surface to which to adhere. Scrape, scrape, scrape…pause for picture…rub, rub, rub.

We had tile adhesive strips to place on the mirror and then put the grid tile all around the edge. This literally took about 22 seconds (+/- 10 seconds). Again, pause for a picture. 

The most time consuming? The grout. First we rubbed it between the tiles and the edges. We used a grout with sand in it because the spacing was appropriate to do so (I seem to remember 1/8th of an inch or bigger being the requirement for the sand grout). Turns out Lindsey is an expert tiler, so I was glad to have her there with me to make sure I didn’t goof our mirror up. Put the grout, then wipe off the excess. It sounds so easy, but we needed a lot more water. Turns out glass cleaner will take it off later. Whew.

Then once you wipe it all clean, you pull the tape off and you have a nice little mirror with mosaic tile on it. Turns out this same process can be used for a tile backsplash in your house. Hmmmm….wonder if I’ll be inspired.

Not only was it a cool easy project, but it was a fun learning experience that can be applied to other projects in my house. The next one is one with lighting and dimmers. We actually replaced all of the outlets in our house (not just the plates but the actual spots you plug things into, so I think we’re good for that), but I’ll definitely be checking what the next project is.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot Cumberland (Store 121).

Tagged as: DIHWorkshop, Home Depot, mirror