Want an easy and cheap mirror option for your home gym? Check out how these $7 panels can be transformed into a gym wall mirror in less than an hour!
Happy New Year! I’m usually not one for new year’s resolutions, but this year I wanted to be more intentional about my aspirations and priorities for 2023, so I did write down some goals.
One of those goals was to improve my health and wellness by focusing more on strength training. We have an amazing home gym in our garage that we’ve slowly built up since the Covid era, but it was missing one small thing: a wall mirror!
A wall mirror isn’t a necessity, but it will help me improve my form and technique. I thought about buying and mounting a single, extra-large mirror or having one cut at a glass-and-mirror shop, but everything I found was $200 and up! No thanks (did I mention another goal is to spend less frivolously?).
That’s when I found these door mirrors at Walmart for $7 each. At approximately 12”x48”, they aren’t very large but three of them mounted together would give me a large enough mirror to fill some of the space behind my squat rack.
The only problem was the bulky, plastic frames. Since I wanted the mirrors aligned together without spaces, I was able to break the brittle plastic frames apart and remove them in chunks.
Here’s how I did it:
1. Gather your materials:
- 3-5 mirrors, like these door mirrors that I purchased from Walmart
- Mirror hooks (I used ⅛” width; 12 total)
- Safety razor
- Level
- Stud finder
- Hammer
- Drill or screwdriver
- Optional liquid nails or other adhesive meant for drywall
2. Remove the plastic frames from the mirrors.
TIP: Don’t be like me and hulk out trying to rip the frame off in one go – I sliced my thumb open on the plastic doing that. Not to mention I cracked the mirror (they are very thin).
Go slow and start with a corner – the corners are held together with thin staples and the adhesive peels apart in some places, so find a weak spot and start there. I was able to bend the plastic easily with my hands, so no tools were required for this part.
3. Remove any extra adhesive with a safety razor.
Slow and steady here – I just removed the adhesive sticking out along the glass’s edge. Any adhesive left on the back of the mirror won’t matter.
4. Outline where you want mirrors on the wall and set the plastic anchor hooks in place.
I held the center mirror in place, made sure it was level, and outlined the top and bottom sections. Then, I measured out another 12” (the width of the additional mirrors) to the left and right along the top and bottom and marked accordingly.
Next, I used a stud finder to locate and mark off studs in the wall (none were in the areas I wanted to mount with hooks). Then, I drilled holes along the lines that I’d marked and set my plastic expansion anchors. I used two anchors for the bottom of each mirror and two for the top of each mirror for a total of 12 anchors and hooks.
I went ahead and mounted the mirror hooks into the bottom row of anchors, leaving a little extra space. This way, when I placed each mirror on the wall, I could balance it on the bottom hooks while drilling the top hooks into place.
5. Mount the mirrors
I opted not to use a wall adhesive, like liquid nails, for a couple of reasons. First, the panels are very lightweight and the mirror hooks are capable of supporting 20 pounds, so there was no risk of them falling if secured properly. Second, since they are in a gym, there’s a chance they may get bumped or cracked with equipment, and a panel would be much easier to clean up and replace if it hasn’t adhered to the wall.
With the bottom mirror hooks in place, I just slid a panel in, made sure it was level, and secured the top mirror hooks with a drill.
DIY Gym Wall Mirrors on a Budget
The entire process of this DIY gym wall mirror took about an hour and cost less than $30. It’s not professional-grade, but it’s a great addition to my home gym and will help me build a little more confidence with my strength training!
Wishing you a happy new year and many thrifty DIY projects in your future!
For another simple DIY project, check out these wall-to-wall bookshelves that added some much-needed storage space to my home office.
