First things first, I just wanted to say hello to my gorgeous new followers!  I have finally, after erm… over a year, hit 3 digits on Google Friend Connect!  *crowd cheering and confetti thrown*  Thank you and welcome – oh and by the way, your hair looks really nice today and I love your shoes.

As you may remember from the last time I spoke about my dressing room, I’d been crushing rather hard on a gorgeous sunflower style large gold mirror.  It was expensive, yes.  £300 on some websites, but thanks to a in-the-know blogger mate, I was directed to Forever Interiors which featured it for £229.  Still, not a price to sniff over, but I knew deep down that it was the perfect foil for a room that would ultimately, carry quite a lot of antique gold along with turquoise, coral and white.  And saving £70 was right up my street.

via

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d looked at other cheaper mirrors, but nothing else was quite right for this room and I knew that I’d just have to bite the bullet and save my pennies to get this particular one.  You know how it is, right, when you have your heart absolutely set on something because you know it’s PERFECT??  Yeah, well, it was pretty much just like that.

And yet, nothing is ever that straight forward, is it?  Of course not.  And this is Swoon Worthy where I do my best to give you all the fun and drama and sometimes complete and utter pain of trying to create big-cost style on a tiny budget….

So imagine my disappointment, when waiting months to purchase and then a couple weeks to finally receive this beautiful addition to my dressing room and when it came in, it wasn’t actually gold at all.  The colour was what I would call a rusted wrought iron.  It was very dark and very dull.  Don’t get me wrong, the shape and style was gorgeous but it wasn’t the right colour.

Honest to god, I could have cried.

WTF?!?!

So, after weighing up my options, I emailed Forever Interiors, along with the rather rubbish photo from my phone above (apologies, I was not in the mood to pull out the good camera) and explained that it really looked nothing at all like the image on the website.  With heavy heart, I said I could either return the mirror at their cost due to misrepresentation or I could try to refinish the mirror myself to achieve the look I’d expected.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to return it – it was stunning – but I wanted an ANTIQUE GOLD mirror, not this.  No, not this at all.  It was all wrong. *sob sob*

I heard back from Mark (who had been extremely helpful in setting up the delivery and answering my questions) who apologised for my disappointment.  He went back into their warehouse to check his remaining stock and agreed, the colour wasn’t as it was represented.  The images on the website had come from the manufacturer and he said they’d obviously not updated him on the new finish and so he was unaware of the change.  And then, after quite a few apologies, he asked me if I wanted to try something.

He said with a bit of white spirit, the rusted finish actually came off revealing the antique gold below.

You can see after the first coat of white spirit, the gold started to be revealed.

He said he’d tried it himself with one of the mirrors and it’d come up beautifully.  He also said, for my efforts, he would refund me £60 against the cost of the mirror.  Well, that brought the price down from £229 to £169.  That’s a pretty amazing discount for a bit of elbow grease.  I agreed to try it, thinking that if it didn’t work out, I’d just get W to paint it for me with a gold spray paint.

Well, happy days.  It worked.  I ended up using a combination of white spirit and Brasso and it took about 20 rags and quite a lot of elbow grease, but I think you’ll agree, it came out rather well.

It’s actually a bit shinier / gold-y in person!

I know, I know, I’m just teasing you now, aren’t I?  But look how well it matches the little jewelry holder…

And now, I’m going to be really horrible and post a before pic for you so you can appreciate where we started from…

Remember the little white dresser?  And the crummy little mirror? And the horrible fugly carpet?  No?  Well, let me remind you…

Oh dear.

And here it is now…

I actually don’t think pictures do the mirror justice or quite capture the impact it makes in the room…

But wow, does it make a statement.  And I do truly love it.

Oh and did you notice my new little owl friend?  I bought him from Rose and Grey.  I can’t resist a little white owl and filled with frilly miniature coral roses, he just brightens up the room.

Say hello to my leetle friend.

I’ve also decided that the rug in this room is going.  I love the way leopard print looks with this combination… so I’m thinking of getting a leopard print rug. 

Very Madeleine Castaing, no??

Madeleine Castaing via Topsy Turvy Style

It’s a consideration anyway!  And this is my personal dressing room so I can go as girly and outrageous as I’d like (unlike the rest of the house which is shared with a boy).  And that, truly, is a beautiful thing.

So what do you think??  Do you think it was worth all the heartache and money to finally get what I want?  Or do you think I should have held out for something less painful to my wallet and my lungs (because breathing in toxins like that isn’t really ideal)?  Think leopard print is more trashy than glamorous and reminds you more of Pat Butcher than Madeleine Castaing? Any large mirror purchases that have created big fabulous impact?  Do tell/link in the comments…

Want to see the original mood board for this room?  Just click here…