When I moved into my little condo it came along with a few unpleasant reminders of decades of bad decorating gone by. The mirrored glass wall above my dining area buffet was one of the worst. Notice I used the word “was.” I tore down the mirrored wall and thought many of you with the same terrible outdated mirror decor left up might want to know how to remove your own mirrored wall. This is a simple home improvement project anyone can do.
My mirrored wall was obviously glued on, but you can come across some mirrored walls that have been attached with mirror clips. These small clear clips will be visible on the outside of your mirror. In almost every case you will see a screw that can be removed with a few twist if a phillips head screw driver. Tearing down this type of mirrored wall is the easiest. Once you take down the wall of mirror you should be left with a nice fresh drywall with no damage.
To Tear Down a Mirrored Wall That Has Been Glue on You Will Need:
Tape (any kind will do)
Butter knife (for those of you lacking tools)
Long thin piece of sturdy metal
Gloves
Plastic Glasses for Eye Protection
The first step of this easy home improvement project is to tape off your mirrored wall. I highly recommend taping the entire mirror before you start to tear it down. This can be tedious, but I had thee panels of mirror to pull down and I taped two completely and one only half way. Needless to say the halfway taped mirror on the wall broke about a zillion times and shot tiny shards of glass everywhere.
So, buy some wide tape and start running it across the entire surface of you mirrored wall.
Put those safely gloves on to protect your hands before you attempt to move on with this home improvement project. Also, wear some glasses. I ended up wearing some sunglasses because that is what I had.
Now, to start tearing down the mirror you need to insert your thin metal strip behind the mirror. I ended up using a butter knife because it is all I had. If I had a thin crow bar I would have tried it, but honestly the butter knife turned out to work really well and was safe.
Insert the end of the butter knife behind top edge of your mirror. Basically anywhere at the top or top sides you can slip it in. Start working the metal behind the mirror. DO NOT PULL UP ON IT AND POP THE GLASS.
Slowly work the butter knife around the edge of the mirror. In my case I found that the mirror slowly popped off the wall in one piece. There were a few instances where the adhesive glue was so thick I had to really work the knife behind the mirror. I did end up popping some of the glass by pulling to hard on the mirror, but all the tape kept glass from going everywhere.
Don’t be afraid to tackle a home improvement job like tearing down a mirrored wall by you. You can save a lot of money doing a little home improvement demolition yourself. I was left with a wall that had some sticky adhesive on it, but that awful mirrored wall was gone!
If you do manage to pull down some of your mirrored wall in one piece then try repurposing it into another home improvement project. I used one of the panels on top of my armoire to decorate for Christmas. You could also use broken pieces of the glass to do a mosaic tile on a wall candle sconce or even a tabletop!
