We scored an awesome mirror at Goodwill a few weeks ago for only $6. It was in great shape, all it needed was a good sanding and a little paint. I remembered my dad needed a mirror for his bathroom, so this would be perfect to make a rustic nautical mirror for him.

Rustic Nautical Mirror Tutorial

The sanding was a pain, we used the electric sander as much as possible but the crevices and curves needed hand sanding. After a lot of sanding and a trip to home depot for more sand paper it was finally ready for spray painting.

I gave it a couple of coats of white primer and then a couple of coats of semi-gloss white. Since I was going to distress it (beacuse it’s supposed to be a rustic nautical mirror), I wasn’t looking for perfect coverage, I wanted a little wood grain to show through.

We bought a roll of 1/4″ manilla rope and glue gunned it to the interior border.

Since my dad loves boating and the water I wanted to give it a nautical look. I also wanted to hide the uneven corner edges as much as possible. So I sorta tied the only knot I could remember and placed it on the corners.

Didn’t look too bad up close…

But once done I just didn’t like it. It just didn’t look right, the ropes on the corners of the frame needed to continue.

So I added rope connecting all the knots. Much better I think! I distressed it a little by sanding the paint until some of the wood underneath showed through.

I was happy with my dad’s rustic nautical mirror came out and best of all my dad loved it!

It’s funny, now that I look at the pictures I don’t mind the first version all that much. What do you think, which one do you like better?