This arch opened up the mudroom

I came in from the car with my sunglasses still on and actually looked at the mudroom, which is not how most of my arrivals go. This is the room we walk through with our hands full. It is smaller than the kitchen and darker than the rest of the house, and for a long time I treated that as a fact I could not do anything about.

The shoe cabinet already did the hard work of hiding the shoes. The wall above it still felt unfinished. Not empty in a pretty way. Empty in the way a sentence feels when you stop too soon.

So I hung a HARRITPURE arched gold mirror up there. Twenty by thirty. A thin gold frame. An arch, not another oval, because the hallway already has those, and this wall wanted its own shape.

It opened the room up. I did not expect a piece of glass to do that much for a mudroom, but a small space will take the help, and this one took it like it had been waiting.

Simple on purpose

I wanted something simple and clean. I did not want a heavy frame that asked me to notice it every time I reached for my keys. The aluminum frame is thin and gold, and it sits quietly on the wall. It looks like I meant it, which is a nicer feeling than it sounds when you are still holding the mail.

The arch is the part that makes me smile. It is a little softer than a rectangle, and a little more decided than a circle. I already have two gold ovals in the hallway, hung sideways. Those are a different job. This one is for a darker corner, over a cabinet, where I wanted the room to feel taller and a little more finished.

Twenty by thirty is the size that fit the wall without crowding the cabinet. Too small and the arch would have looked like a decoration I forgot to commit to. Too tall and I would have been walking around a statement I did not need in a room I pass through with grocery bags.

I wanted the room to feel bigger. I also wanted it to feel like I meant it.

More light than I thought I would get

This part of the house does not get the same light the kitchen does. I used to walk in and feel the dim before I felt anything else. The mirror pulls what light there is and hands it back. I see the door across the way, and a little more brightness than the room actually has, and then I keep going.

That is the whole trick, and I like that it is a trick. I did not paint. I did not move a window. I hung a mirror and the mudroom stopped feeling like the leftover.

There is a little wooden box of greenery sitting on the cabinet. I did not hang the mirror to show off the plants. I hung it because the wall above the shoes looked like we had stopped too soon, and now it does not.

I walk through here a dozen times a day. Dean and Rey do too. A mudroom mirror has to survive that kind of traffic and still look like itself when I come back with another bag. This one does. It does not ask me to hover. It just sits there and makes a small, darker room feel like part of the house.

Would I buy it again? Yes. I come in, I see more space than I used to, and I stop thinking about the wall. That is a lot to ask of a mudroom, and this arch did it without making a fuss.

Happy Girl, Happy Home

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