Reflections on Buying and Repairing Mirrors
In Lewis Carroll’s fantasy book, “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There,” Alice steps through a mirror in her living room and enters a magical place that is rivaled only by the wondrous land she discovered when she fell down a rabbit’s hole. Not since Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection when he looked into a pool of water has there been such a magical mirror.
In less mythical circumstances, mirrors play a vital role in everyone’s day to day life. It has little to do with vanity or magic, but everything to do with applying lipstick or straightening a tie.
Whether you’re looking to mirror the 5-by-8-foot wall in the entry of your Rancho Bernardo home (about $400 not including installation) or resilver the antique 2-by-2-foot mirror hanging above the dresser in your San Marcos bedroom (about $26), North County offers a range of services for those in a reflective mood.
Long before it arrives in North County department stores, home improvement centers and glass shops, mirror glass travels from several major glass manufacturers throughout the country. A wall mirror in Encinitas or a wardrobe door in Escondido may have originated from the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. in Pennsylvania, or from a glass house in Los Angeles.
The mirror glass made in the United States is called float plate. Glass is poured into a mold, ground and polished on each side so there is no optic distortion. Float plate has been on the market since the late 1960s and hundreds of thousands of square feet is manufactured every day.
In a bygone era when it wasn’t so cost prohibitive, glass companies made and beveled their own glass. Now, local companies buy cases of mirrors from suppliers throughout the country.
Straight-edged glass is the most common and easiest glass to produce. Beveled glass is the most labor intensive and expensive to produce because each edge of the mirror is run through a series of diamond wheels, then buffered and polished to create that slightly raised or slanted look.
There are a number of businesses in North County that specialize in custom mirror sales and installation.
In addition, home improvement establishments usually stock framed mirrors to hang on walls or doors. Home Depots and Price Clubs, for example, have a number of these mirrors (framed in everything from oak to plastic) ranging from $10 and up.
These mirrors are mainly imported from Korea and Taiwan and made from glass that is not optically perfect. In smaller mirrors, the distortions are hard to detect, but in larger mirrors, waves can be seen. For some shoppers, the comparatively low price of these mirrors outweighs the drawback of imperfections in them.
At Escondido Glass Co., the mainstay of their business is outfitting private homes with mirrored walls and wardrobe doors. In better economic times, the majority of Escondido Glass’ business came from contractors, but the recession has shifted the focus of their business to retail, said general manager Mike O’Donnell.
Depending on their style and size, mirrors can enlarge the look of a room. Mirrors can also lighten up a room depending on the light that already exists and as long as a dark metal is not used to frame the glass.
“A wall of mirrors will open up a room, make it seem bigger,” O’Donnell said. “Sometimes fancy mirrors or beveled glass mirrors are used to show off a piece of furniture or a certain aspect of a room. It depends on what you’re trying to achieve.”
If a wardrobe door or mirrored wall is going to be installed in a small room, one piece of glass 8- to 10-feet-wide, or 3 pieces of glass the same width usually looks best, O’Donnell said. In a bigger room, 4 or 6 pieces of the same width glass can be used, but 3 or 5 pieces is better, he said.
“Using odd numbered pieces of glass looks better than even numbers,” he said. “For some reason, two pieces looks like you didn’t have enough glass to cover the wall.”
Installation on a regular-sized wardrobe door (a piece of glass ranging from 5- to 8-feet wide by 6- to 8-feet tall) is a one-man job that would take about an hour, O’Donnell said. A bigger piece of glass, such as one 12-feet wide by 8-feet tall, would require two installers, he said.
No special preparation is required to apply a wall of mirrors, O’Donnell said. It is a relatively simple procedure to glue sheets of mirror to a flat wall and butt the joints correctly to avoid distortion, he said.
A beveled overlay mirror is more expensive, but it creates a nicer effect and installation is easier because there is no seam to worry about, O’Donnell said.
Problems can occur with a mirror in the bathroom or a mirrored shower door, O’Donnell said. Condensation will eventually eat off the silver film that backs all mirrors and gives them their reflective quality, he said.
“We always tell people if they are installing a bathroom mirror, not to use a closed bottom track. That encourages condensation.”
The grade of glass varies, but Escondido Glass Co. uses domestic glass that is 1/4-inch thick. The difference in price doesn’t warrant working with a thinner glass, which has its problems, O’Donnell said.
Cost of glass also varies from company to company. A comparable rate is $8 to $10 a square foot for a wall of mirrors and $5 to $6 a square foot for a single mirror for a wardrobe door. For a more personalized mirror, Linda Raimondi, manager of the Glass Menagerie in Encinitas, suggests buying the frame of your choice at an art shop and having a glass company insert a custom cut mirror. The installation cost varies depending on the size of the mirror, but inserting a custom cut mirror in a frame is a simple procedure and many glass companies are happy to oblige.
“There are so many people who want different sizes of framed mirrors, traditional or contemporary. How could we possibly hope to sell them all?,” Raimondi said. “It’s so easy to go to a frame shop and choose from two million frames, and they are all suitable for a mirror,” she said.
And then there are the mirrors that, like a cherished piece of furniture, are handed down from generation to generation. Truly old mirrors, flaws and all, have a character of their own that shouldn’t be altered.
But, if an old mirror needs resilvering because there are spots on the glass that no longer reflect, North County consumers need to look south to Joe Sewall. Sewall is one of a handful of resilverers left in California.
For the past 55 years, Sewall has been resilvering antique mirrors. He said silvering mirrors with real sterling silver was not common practice until the turn of the century and World War I.
Prior to that, before the toxic effects were known, glass shop apprentices silvered mirrors with mercury. The apprentices often died of mercury poisoning at a very young age, Sewall said.
Sewall recommends resilvering if it’s an old beveled mirror because of the craftsmanship involved in creating the mirror. On the other hand, a newer, clean cut mirror with sharp edges is rarely worth resilvering because there was little labor involved in making the glass.
Sewall charges $6.50 a square foot for resilvering. However, he says throughout the state he has seen resilvering costs as high as $40 a square foot.
“In some of the old (turn of the century) clean cut edge glass, there is a certain antique value, especially if the glass has bubbles in it,” Sewall said. “If it has bubbles and flaws and cat eyes, I do resilver those mirrors because I don’t think you should put a new piece of perfect plate glass into an old antique frame. It just doesn’t seem right.”
“But I refuse to resilver any mirrors that are so old they have a value even with the silver being bad. They have a certain value you should never change,” Sewall said.
MORE ON MIRRORS
There are numerous glass companies that custom cut mirrors and an equal number of shops that sell antique looking glasses. One of the few mirror silverers in the state is located in San Diego.
Here are some starting places: Escondido Glass Co., 868 N. Broadway, Escondido. Phone: 746-1615
* The Glass Menagerie, 264 N. El Camino Real, Encinitas. Phone: 944-7955
* Home Depot, 3838 Vista Way, Oceanside. Phone: 941-5990. 1352 W. Valley Parkway, Escondido. Phone: 432-9600
* The Heritage Antiques Mall, 241 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. Phone: 481-1099
* Joe Sewall of Sewall Glass, 5801 Fairmount Ave., San Diego. Resilvers mirrors. Phone: 282-9449
