Mirrors

How to choose a mirror

A mirror earns its keep by doing one simple job well: it bounces light. Hung on the wall opposite a window, even a £40 mirror can make a small room feel a third bigger and a stop brighter. Get the size, the placement and the frame right and you're past most of the decision.

Size and proportion is the call most people get wrong. A mirror that's too small for the wall reads as an afterthought. A useful rule of thumb is two-thirds the width of whatever sits below it: above a sofa, two-thirds the sofa width; above a console table, two-thirds the table width; above a fireplace, around two-thirds the mantel width. Going larger is fine. Going smaller looks like you ran out of budget.

Placement changes how much work the mirror does. Opposite a window pulls daylight into the room and is the highest-impact spot. Above a console in a hallway gives you somewhere to check yourself on the way out. Above a fireplace is traditional and reliably elegant if the proportions work. Avoid hanging a mirror so it reflects directly into another mirror; you'll see yourself standing in a queue stretching to the horizon.

Frame and shape set the room's tone. Round and arched mirrors soften a wall full of straight lines (kitchens, narrow hallways). Rectangular and full-length mirrors are sharper and more formal. Frame finish matters more than people think: brass and bronze warm a room, black and gunmetal sharpen it, distressed wood reads country, and frameless reads contemporary. Pick the frame that matches the room's other metals.

Bathroom-specific mirrors are a different brief. Look for damp-rated builds, integrated LED lighting, or anti-fog heating elements if you want one that's still clear after a hot shower. Hardwired LED mirrors should be installed by a qualified electrician.

The brands and retailers we list

We pull around 8,800 mirrors from across the UK retailers we cover. The names below are the ones with the deepest catalogues.

The Range stocks the widest selection in the value-to-mid bracket, with around 6,500 mirrors covering wall, full-length, dressing table and decorative styles. Worth filtering by colour and shape first.

Robert Dyas covers around 5,400 mirrors, leaning into framed wall mirrors and bathroom-spec pieces with LED options under £200.

Cox & Cox sits at the upper end. Smaller catalogue, properly designed mirrors with a country-modern slant, often in arched, oval and pill shapes. Worth a look if the budget is over £150.

Furniture in Fashion covers full-length, leaner-style and statement-piece mirrors in the £80 to £300 bracket.

Filter the grid above by colour, material or price to narrow things down, or browse the full mirror range without filters to see everything in stock. Prices update daily.