Those of you who've been reading and following me over the years know that I am greatly influenced by my grandmother's taste, style and sensibilities. Her lifestyle and joie de vivre have had an enormous influence on my life, and no less in my home. 

From my grandmother I have become a huge fan of color in my home. She was a master at finding everything at a bargain - she knew where to skip and where to splurge. Her style was classic and modern-day rolled into one.  Every time I flip through a magazine in which one of her homes was featured I'm always taken back by how timeless and current her style was. It seems that everything she touched became timeless.

My grandmother was a minimalist. She thought the furniture ought to compliment the architecture of a room. My grandmother was also a huge fan of the mirror. She believed in them completely and used them often.

Mirrors have enormous capabilities. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing they open up spaces, making small areas seem larger. They can brighten up rooms, especially when strategically placed to let natural daylight bounce off of them. Placed across a window, a mirror can seemingly double the light and size of a room.  Mirrors can also serve as an elegant and affordable means to add decor and art to your space.

A favorite mirror hung was in one of the bathrooms of my grandmother's Oxfordshire Manor House. In the home there was a bathroom that looked out onto the expansive front lawn and the endless fields beyond. There were white wooden shutters that we could draw to a close, and did once the sun set, but other than that I always left them open. Directly across from the window was a deep, old claw footed bathtub and the wall against it contained an enormous mirror. So if you bathed during the daylight hours, as I often did, you could pretend, as I did, that you were in the middle of an endless English field with no one around you for miles and miles and miles. For my incredible view was reflected in the vast mirror. Only thing missing? A few sheep and cows in the fields! The sunsets, needless to say, were positively magnificent from that vantage point!

Really, there's no room that's not a perfect place to park or perch your mirror. As you'll see from the images below, a mirror is striking in any setting from kitchen to bedroom to living room, entry way, and bathroom. What's best about mirrors is that they complement any style. They're perhaps the perfect accessory for your home.