Are you tired of all the plain solid furniture filling up your home? If you’re yearning for a different look, mirrored furniture will certainly give it to you. The unmatched shine and brightness of mirrored furniture instantly uplifts a dull room and transforms it magically. A mirrored sideboard is an excellent choice that readily becomes the new centrepiece of your room. Whether placed in the dining area or in the bedroom, a mirrored sideboard will add layers of style to the space, allowing you to experiment with new style angles.

The most aesthetic part of this sideboard is the mirror. It’s also its strongest attraction. The mirror will reflect the light in the room, helping make the room brighter. If you’re worried that your dining area isn’t as big as you’d like, a mirrored sideboard will add depth to the room so that it appears bigger.

Choosing a Mirrored Sideboard
Like other mirrored furniture, sideboard comes in different styles and designs. Styles can be categorized broadly as either traditional or modern. Under traditional, some styles lean heavily towards vintage, others are easily identifiable as country and still, others will have antique bearings. The modern style also has numerous spinoffs, with urban chic, contemporary, art deco and trendy all having unique style identifiers.

The style of mirrored sideboard you pick is ultimately determined by your preference and the general look you want to put across. To an extent, it may be determined by the style of the rest of the furniture in the room. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The beauty of using mirror furniture is that it goes well with all other styles and, therefore, it doesn’t matter whether your style of decorating is predominantly modern or classically traditional. Somehow, whichever mirrored sideboard will fit right in and actually look good.

Choose the size of sideboard carefully. The last thing you want is to have a sideboard that completely fills up one end of the wall, leaving a very narrow passage at the door. Keep things proportional to maintain a neat, uncluttered look. If you’re lucky to have a large room to place your sideboard, you can buy any of the larger-sized models. The mirrored sections of the sideboard will make it appear smaller so that it becomes less intimidating.

How much of the surface do you want to be covered in mirror? Most designs have a full mirror frontal, which brings out the aesthetic aspect perfectly as the mirror is openly displayed. Other designs will have a mirrored table top in addition to the front mirror. Choose this option if you have no intentions of subjecting the sideboard to heavy use as accidental hits and bumps can damage the mirror over time. That said, mirror doesn’t break easily and even in areas where you’re constantly piling things on the sideboard and it suffers the occasional heavy impact, your mirrored sideboard will hold up quite well and withstand the pressure for a good number of years.

Consider the cabinets and drawers in the sideboard. How many they are and in what size they are made. The best mirrored sideboards have a combination of large and small drawers and cabinets to allow for diversity in storage. Decide whether you need a higher number of bigger cabinets or many, small ones then find a model that gives you this.

What a Good Mirrored Sideboard is all about
There is an impressive variety of mirrored sideboards in the market today. But are they all perfectly made? Sadly, no. It’ll take a keen eye and attention to detail to find a good mirrored sideboard which, far from being only an ornamental addition to your home, serves you well. So what should you be on the lookout for?

Sturdy construction: This is the first indicator that a manufacturer put good technology and expertise into the making of the sideboard. There should be no wobbling and no shaky bits. The legs should be firm and of a good thickness to provide the required support to the rest of the table. The joints should be well-joined and no edges should be left exposed. Door handles and knobs should also be firmly fixed on to the drawers so they don’t come loose after a short period of use.

Good finishing: The mirror finish is, without a doubt, perfectly done, but what about the rest of the parts? Whether the sideboard is made from solid wood, engineered wood or metal, all the non mirrored parts need to be well finished. In many modern styles, manufacturers use a smooth finish for a polished look. The distressed finish is quite popular with many and goes well with both modern and traditional mirrored sideboard designs.

Spacious: Other than the table top being sizeable enough for your requirements, the cabinets and drawers also need to be spacious enough for you to store a range of items. Choose designs that have deep cabinets and drawers of varying size. The greater the size variation, the more the number of items you can store inside.

Easy to open: This applies to both the drawers and cabinets. If the quality of workmanship is good, they will open and close with ease. If not, you’ll have trouble with the doors jamming at times and may need to hire someone to fix them afresh if this problem persists. Having runners in the drawers goes a long way in ensuring smooth opening so this is something else you should to consider.

Well fixed mirror: Cheap mirror work includes gluing the mirror onto the frame instead of screwing it in. Now, some furniture makers do a good job with the glue and the results are admirable. But for long lasting effect, choose a model where the larger mirrored sections are screwed onto the rest of the furniture rather than simply attached by glue.

Quality mirrors: Mirrors vary greatly in quality. The best mirrored sideboards are made using top quality mirrors. Avoid mirrors that are very light and thin as well as those that give a tinge of a different colour, say blue or green, when held up to a source of light.

Using a Mirrored Sideboard with other Furniture
Overall, you won’t have to replace your existing furniture just because you bought a new mirror sideboard and want everything to blend in. The sideboard will blend with whatever style of furniture you have. This is probably the greatest advantage mirrored furniture has over other types of furniture. But if you like, you can choose one whose frame is of the same colour as the room furniture. Painting the frame in a matching colour is an option you can pursue if finding a ready mirrored sideboard of the same colour proves difficult.

All this is not entirely necessary though, and you’ll find when placed against different furniture, your mirrored sideboard gives an attractive contrast. So there really is no need to go through all the trouble of finding a mirror sideboard in a matching colour. This is also the reason why you can place your mirrored sideboard next to a wooden dining table, metal stools, leather sofa, wicker armchair or furniture of any other material and it will look just as elegant.

The more crucial thing is to ensure that your furniture arrangement brings out the best of the room. This means observing the basic rules of furniture placement to keep the flow natural. If possible, your mirrored sideboard should be of similar size or as close in size s possible to the rest of the furniture. The exception would be if your plan is to make the sideboard the central focus of the room, in which case it is okay for it to be of a slightly bigger size. Just don’t go overboard when picking the size or it’ll swallow everything else.

Adding a complementary mirrored accent is okay. What you want to avoid is stuffing the room with too many mirrored pieces. Two pieces are stylish but add more and the look changes to tacky. Yes, even mirrored furniture can give the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect when abused. You don’t want a room that blinds your eyes when you step into it, which is what lots of reflective mirrored furniture placed in different parts of the room can do.

There are lots of places where you can place a mirrored sideboard. From finding a home in your living room to taking pride of place at the dining room or bedroom, the mirrored sideboard can be the focal point of any room. With designs that include black mirrored sideboards, white mirrored sideboards, silver mirrored sideboards and solid wood mirrored sideboards, finding one that is appropriate for your space is going to be enjoyable. Even better, you can pair your mirrored sideboard with furniture of any style and colour and its beauty will not be diminished in the least. Just remember to choose one in the right size and ensure that it has enough storage space to meet your needs.

Some popular materials: dark wood, walnut, solid oak, teak, pine, glass, high gloss, light oak, white wood, wooden…