Stylish & Beautiful Mirror Ideas for Your Dining Room
Mirrors are a great way to add some interest and style when decorating your dining room. Imaginative mirror ideas for a dining room can make your space look bigger while simultaneously enhancing the overall design.
This article discusses 15 simple and clever ways to use shining surfaces in your dining room. Whether you’re looking for new ways to spruce up the space or are just starting to plan your decorating scheme, read on for some inspiration!
Install Mirror Tiles
Mirror tiles are great for your dining room as they provide the perfect combination of decoration and function. Rather than a single framed mirror, the tiles come in bits and are meant to be arranged in a pattern that can be extended to any length.
They produce complete images when fitted together, with the broken lines between each tile adding peculiarity to the image. You can choose common tile shapes like squares and rectangles or irregular shapes like pentagons and hexagons, extending them to your chosen length.
In addition, these mirrors have a higher reflective ability, making them perfect for smaller spaces. When placed adjacent to a window, they reflect natural light making your dining room lighter and visually more spacious. Last but not least, there is an additional advantage. In the event of an accident, you’ll only need to replace a tile or two and not the entire set.
Build a Mirror Wall
One of the more popular ideas of using reflective pieces for decoration is to cover an entire wall with a large piece. However, such a solution is better suited for a space with limited decorative objects. The simple reason for this is that if there are too many reflected objects, your room gets visually cluttered and starts to seem dense.
On the other hand, if chosen properly, large mirror wall decoration ideas for a dining room will leave your guests amazed and even awed. You can also create a mirror wall by piecing together small unframed mirrors in the desired pattern.
Use a Mirror Cabinet
This cabinet provides extended functionality beyond reflection and decoration. This design approach creates a storage compartment that can be invaluable in small spaces. When choosing ideas like this, the key to success is to make sure that the cabinet frame matches the room’s furniture.
For additional aesthetic appeal, place an average-sized cabinet near an empty wall and keep it opposite a large window, allowing it to reflect more light. What’s more, make sure that the cabinet is just above your chair’s height. This way, its doors will reflect light to brighten your space without reflecting the people who are eating.
Add a Mirror to a Group of Artwork
When it comes to reflective surfaces, the bigger doesn’t equal the better. If you have a large space where you eat and windows provide sufficient light, you might only need small mirrors to enhance your room’s decor. In this case, simply add a small wall mirror to your art collection.
Wall art can embellish any space effortlessly. What’s more, adding beautifully framed reflective surfaces of any shape in its midst will give your space a truly graceful touch. If you have a pair of sconces on the same wall, you’ll even be able to do some magic as the mirrors will reflect the lights, effectively highlighting your artistic organization.
Use Them in Groups
An important rule for keeping reflective items where you eat is to ensure that visitors do not see themselves while eating. However, this can be unavoidable with large frames. Still, you can have mirrors where you dine and get additional light without having to put up with the reflected images of people.
One of the more useful ideas to achieve this is to use a set of similarly shaped reflective pieces placed at standing height. You can then organize this set in any pattern you choose. Whether adjacent to or opposite a window, these mirrors will reflect sufficient light to brighten, warm, and expand the area.
Put a Sunburst Mirror
Sunburst mirrors are more decorative than functional. However, by having a sunburst installed in your well-lit dining room, you can rest assured that your decor will be incredibly stylish. Even more than the reflective part itself, the extended circular metal rays replicate the sun rays and make the sunburst a true beauty.
You can choose a silver or golden sunburst so that it matches your chandelier or light fixtures. To maximize its beauty, place the sunburst on an empty and solid painted wall, where it will make an admirable focal point.
Use Round Forms for Rectangular Walls
True beauty often lies in simplicity, and this statement proves true even when it comes to mirror decor in a dining room. Round mirrors with a minimalist metal frame can profoundly affect your dining area. On a rectangular wall, round forms add much-needed curvature to the all too noticeable right angles, making your area more relaxed.
In addition, the very shape of such a mirror makes it a focal point, and the simple design allows it to create clear images and reflect enough natural light to brighten the room and give you a sense of expanded space.
Use Segmented Framed Pieces
You may not like the permanence of a mirror wall or simply cannot afford such an investment. In this case, large framed mirrors provide an affordable alternative. What’s more, ideas like this still allow you to have lots of reflected light in the area where you dine.
This design approach is more practical for larger spaces. It also involves segmented reflections, and you can see any image from any part of the room. You can also be creative with the frames: set them in gold, silver, bronze, some other metal, or even wood.
Make Sure They Match Your Furniture
Mirrors do not always need to be a stand-alone decoration; design ideas that really work always use them to complement other pieces of furniture. The color of the frame needs to match the color of your furniture (or, alternatively, provide a pleasing contrast).
What’s more, you can play with the shapes so that your reflective surfaces look similar to the backrests of your dining chairs. Such complementary design highlights your attentiveness to details.
Use Decorative Pieces over a Mirror Wall
Mirror walls are great, but if your rooms are full of decorative objects, their reflections can clutter, not expand the space. You can use additional decorative reflective surfaces to effectively control excessive reflections.
Decorative mirrors can be of any shape. Their size, however, needs to be proportional to that of your main mirror. This way, enough light will be reflected to brighten and expand the space, while the unwanted reflections will be broken by the overlapping boundaries.
Make a Collage
Groups of smaller mirrors can be as functional as larger pieces and have even greater aesthetic appeal. How beautiful they can be is evident from this collage that is made of small framed items of different shapes and dimensions.
Such a collage will fit perfectly on a solid painted wall; it can also be used to complement a well-designed wallpaper. With a uniform frame style for all your reflective pieces, you just need to find the perfect arrangement and pattern that will make as strong an impression as possible.
Create a Wall with Smaller Pieces
If you’d like to have a mirror wall but still prefer smaller framed items, you can have the best of both worlds with this solution. Use framed rectangular mirrors of medium length and place them side-by-side across the entire wall.
While a collage normally covers a few meters/yards and is usually placed at eye level, this solution uses smaller reflective surfaces to cover the entire wall length. Depending on your choice, you can have them above a buffet, sideboard, or from the ground up.
Use an Antique Framed Mirror
When it comes to objects of decor, the frames make all the difference. If you want to make a really strong — and unique — impression in your dining room, use an antique frame. Perfect-sized antique mirrors with fascinating shapes and frames can add character and style to your space.
Although antique mirrors, especially those framed with precious metals, may be expensive, they are worth every penny for the beauty they provide. Such decorations create a pleasant focal point that truly crowns your effort.
Use Unusual Frames
There is nothing wrong with letting your imagination run wild. After deciding on size and placement, why don’t you get creative with the frames? You can opt for a modern metal frame, stick to wood, or choose anything else that pleases you. After you have decided on the frame material, choose the design or pattern that will complement your decors — such as your lighting fixtures or furniture. Beautifully framed mirrors are available at online shops, and you can get a custom-built mirror to match your specifications.
Make Them Convex
Convex mirrors are great for small spaces because they bend the light and make the area appear bigger. Hang one in such a way so that it receives — and reflects — as much natural light from the window as possible.
Such reflective pieces can also be made decorative if you decide to beautify their frames. What’s more, this is one of the best small dining room mirror ideas because convex mirrors don’t reflect people while they are eating and simultaneously spread enough light to keep the room bright and make it feel spacious.
How Should I Place Mirrors In a Dining Room?
Mirrors in dining rooms can be used both as decorations and to serve other functional purposes. However, it is their placement that is the most important factor you need to consider. So when deciding on dining room mirror ideas, keep these rules in mind:
- Do not hang a mirror in places where your guests can see themselves while eating.
- Hang mirrors at standing height.
- Install mirrors to highlight a beautiful part of the room, like an art decoration.
- Where possible, hang mirrors close/adjacent to a window and not directly opposite it.
- Use appropriate shapes and sizes.
FAQs
Here are some answers to commonly asked questions:
It’s totally fine to place a mirror in the space where you eat. In fact, this is one of the best rooms for it. However, you’ll want to be careful to place the reflective surface at standing height and position, so it does not embarrass your guests. When properly placed, such mirrors can be both functional and decorative.
The dimensions of your dining mirror are wholly dependent on your design and the size of your space. To be truly decorative, though, they must be in proportionate size and complementary shapes to the wall where they are mounted. Depending on the design, even small mirrors can be quite functional in the space where you eat.
Final Thoughts
Placing mirrors in the space where you eat can bolster your decoration, enhance natural lighting and give you an illusion of spaciousness. However, just like the size and design, their placement can greatly impact the decorative effect and function. Our 15 creative mirror ideas for a dining room listed above combine unique designs with proper functionality.