A Tale of Three Mirrors...

I've been looking for a mirror to go over the piano since before we moved into the house (i.e. a looong time). I wanted something black with a unique shape and a fairly thick frame, and it had to be the right size for the space.

Empty wall... needs a mirror!

After months of finding nothing I liked, I found the Lavello Mirror from Ballard Designs:

(source)

Being from Ballard, it was pretty pricey. For $109 plus shipping and all that, it definitely wasn't something I quickly purchased. Eventually, Jeff and I decided that we would go ahead and splurge on it (way more than we normally spend for house stuff) because it's such a unique piece and that room is SO visible in our house (it's right by the front door).

But then, on a random trip to HomeGoods (the far-away one that's actually in town), I found a similar mirror that I loved just as much, for a mere $29.99 (Mirror #1)! I snatched that baby up and put him in my shopping cart. As soon as I got home, I proudly carried him into the piano room and propped him up on the piano, and that's when I found it - a crack in the glass.

But it looks so pretty!!!

From back here it's lovely, but up close... the glass was cracked!

Cue disappointment. I couldn't remember seeing any more mirrors at the store in town. I contemplated just keeping it anyway (would anyone really notice?), but decided in the end that I didn't want a cracked mirror in my house. We have another HomeGoods store about 15 minutes from our house, so I figured I'd go there and have a look. I packed up cracked Mirror #1, returned him to the store, and searched high and low to no avail. I left empty-handed.

The very next day, I travelled back to the in-town HomeGoods hoping they'd have another mirror. I didn't find an exact match, but I did find the white version (Mirror #2). I figured $29.99 plus a can of black spray paint was still a really good deal, so off to the cash register I went with the white mirror.

At this point, I tried to convince myself that I liked it in white (to avoid the trouble of painting it). I actually do think it's lovely, but everything else in the room is ivory (so it was kind of glaringly white). Jeff and I both agreed that black would be better. Plans to paint Mirror #2 were made.

A week or so later, I still hadn't managed to find time to spray painting the mirror, but I went to the HomeGoods by our house to get a gift for a friend. That's when I found it - another black mirror (Mirror #3)! At first I was sure that it was just Mirror #1 again (since I had returned #1 to that store a week prior), but I searched and searched, and I couldn't find that little crack in the glass! It was a black, crack-free mirror! I may have actually heard the Hallelujah chorus playing in my head at this point. I was elated!

SO PRETTY!!!

So we were finally able to hang Mirror #3 above the piano, and I'm quite happy!

Moral of the Story: Frequent trips to HomeGoods actually save you money in the long run! Teehee.

PS - It turns out Ballard stopped selling the Lavello Mirror a couple of weeks ago, so even if I wanted to pay the $100+, I can't get it now! Thank goodness I found my beloved Mirror #3!