10 Reasons Why You Should Put a Mirror in a Living Room

Giovanni Valle is a licensed architect and LEED-accredited professional and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is the author and managing editor of various digital publications, including BuilderSpace, Your Own Architect, and Interiors Place.

Mirrors aren’t only used to see your reflection. They can be beautiful decorative pieces for your home, especially in our living rooms.

Apart from practical purposes, using a mirror in a living room can brighten it up, make it look more spacious, and hide things you want nobody to see on the walls. Mirrors can also serve as art pieces or be used for feng shui to invite positive energy to your living room.

In this article, I’ll list ten reasons why mirrors are actually great decorative pieces for any living room and every style.

1. Use a Mirror for Reflections

Well, this is the main characteristic of mirrors, and they’re so great at it. All the better to use them primarily for this purpose.

It’s generally a good idea to have mirrors everywhere, including in our living rooms, because we need to see ourselves in them.

Not because we’re in love with our reflections, but sometimes we have something on our face or shirt and can’t be bothered to go to the bathroom.

When we have a mirror in the living room, it additionally reflects our beautiful furniture, so it’s more about decoration than looking at yourself.

So, the height of a mirror is important in this case because you want it high enough to see everything when you stand up, but not too high.

2. Mirrors Can Make Your House Look More Modern

Modern design is all about simplicity and clear lines. So, what better decoration than a mirror?

If you really like a modern and simplistic look for your living room, placing a mirror with a simple frame can make your living space appear modern.

There are also modern designs with various intricate shapes, and numerous mirrors are designed like that, so there’s something to choose from for everyone.

3. Mirrors Are Great for Inviting Light In

Because of their reflective nature, you can use mirrors to brighten your living room. Not all of us have large windows or French doors for our light source during the day.

In this case, the bigger, the better! Find some oversized mirror that’ll reflect light from your small window.

You could also use more than one mirror so the light can dance through your living room as it reflects from each mirror. It’s best to put mirrors on the opposite sides of the living room for the best result, though.

4. You Can Cover Up Space You Don’t Want Others To See

Most of us have some tiny screw hole or some weird dark stain somewhere on our living room walls. Sure, you can call somebody to seal the hole or paint the wall, but that takes time and money.

An easier fix is to cover it with a mirror. Nobody will notice anything other than a beautiful decorative mirror on the wall.

5. Mirrors Can Be Used as Art

What if your living room isn’t particularly fit for an old oil painting? Or even some avant-garde piece of art? Well, mirrors can also be great art pieces with the advantage of blending nicely with the living space.

You can find hundreds of really old, vintage mirrors that might not be great for reflection because of small cracks or holes, yet they make them perfect for decorative art.

If you like the style of vintage, discolored furniture, then old mirrors are perfect for your living room.

6. Use Mirrors as Statement Pieces

Every living room’s designed with its owner’s personality built into them. Therefore, everything we see there reflects that person’s taste.

That’s why when you come into a modern living room and see a mirror with an old frame, you can’t help but think something’s not right. That’s because we don’t think of mirrors as decorative statement pieces, which they very much can be.

So, mirrors in the living room should reflect our own taste and make a real statement.

7. You Can Use a Mirror as a Centerpiece

Fireplaces are, in most cases, the real centerpieces of our living rooms. They are the starting point we build everything around, and they visually break the wall through the middle nicely, making it more pleasing to the eye.

However, some living rooms don’t have a fireplace. Instead, they have a large wall that needs to be filled with something, and that’s where mirrors come in.

You can use an oversized mirror to serve as a centerpiece of your living room. It’ll reduce the empty space on your wall, and you can put other decorations around it.

8. Mirrors Make Your Living Room Look Bigger

Many living rooms, especially in apartments, are simply too small. There’s not much room for bulky decorative pieces to make them stylish or unique. Well, mirrors can help with this too.

Again, due to their reflective nature, mirrors can actually make a living room look bigger than it is. That’s why it’s best to use big oversized mirrors to cover one wall as much as possible, to make it appear as if the wall isn’t there.

Another great characteristic of mirrors is their thinness. That’s a huge plus in small living rooms, where you enlarge them and decorate them without taking up too much space.

9. Mirrors Make Living Room More Inviting

Some living rooms seem cold and uncomfortable no matter how hard you try to redecorate them. You put all kinds of colorful flowers on coffee tables and bright paintings on every wall, and yet they’re still uninviting.

When you put mirrors up, everything changes somehow. Not only do mirrors reflect much-needed light, but they also make the living room seem more cozy and personal.

This is perhaps because we immediately connect it with our bedrooms, where we usually have our mirrors and feel most relaxed.

10. Mirrors Are Great for Feng Shui

If you’re one of those who arrange their furniture and decor according to good feng shui, then you should know that mirrors can be a great source of positive energy (qi) and good luck.

However, you need to be careful how and where you place your mirrors in the living room area because if not done properly, they can also bring negative energy into the space.

That’s why you shouldn’t keep a mirror above your sofa, for example. Instead, place it to reflect the scenery from the outside for better energy.