mirror turned thermostat cover.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Jim the Builder.

With the new bathroom short on storage, we were in desperate need of more places to store my girlie bathroom stuff. You know, hair mousse, a hair dryer, a diffuser, a straightener, makeup, hair accessories, 3 different face masks... The usual.

Fortunately, with the excess storage space in the kitchen, we were able to recycle an old microwave stand into a spacious vanity. Everything was coming together except for one major eyesore:

For the record, I was completely fine with shoving a bunch of white frames up there to help camouflage the bright white thermostat. It's my not-so-secret recipe for anything ugly. Luckily, Jim decided to go a mile further and thought to actually hide it completely. He grabbed a $1 garage sale mirror I had lying around and headed to The Home Depot.

Here's what you'll need:
- framed mirror (any size)
- one door magnet
- two hinges
- piece of wood 1-1/2" wide, trimmed down to the size of the mirror (save a piece for the magnet!)
- three screws
- "L" bracket to mount door magnet

Here's what you do:
1. Trim the wood to the size of the mirror.
2. Screw in the hinges (make sure they're placed the right way for opening)
3. Drill three holes for your nails (make wider to use shorter nails)
4. Paint the wood the same color as the wall
5. Screw in the door magnet to scrap piece of wood
6. Screw wood anchors to the wall

Although the transformation isn't completely finished, the mirrored thermostat cover makes a HUGE difference. I plan on adding some artwork and/or shelving to help ground the stand on that large, empty wall. With larger accessories, new knobs and a darker stain job, this microwave stand is going to look insane. Here's kind of what I was we are thinking but not really exactly:

via the newlywed diaries

via bazaar of serendipity