The Second Window: 10 Nordic Mirrors for the Dark Half

The Second Window: 10 Nordic Mirrors for the Dark Half

The clocks went back at the weekend, and the hour that was late afternoon in September is now evening. Rooms that needed nothing a month ago have gone flat by four. The Nordic answer is not another lamp, or not only another lamp. It is to put a piece of glass where the last of the daylight falls, and let the room use that light twice.

A mirror hung opposite a window behaves like a second window: it borrows whatever is outside, a wet pavement or a white sky, and lays it on the far wall. A mirror beside a candle doubles the flame. What follows is ten of them from Nordic makers, from a small disc set at a slant to a frame cut into waves. All ten are in stock in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark, so the prices are worth comparing on ScandiDeals before anything is hung.

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1. Gejst Glim Mirror/Candlestick – One Flame, Counted Twice

This is the argument of the whole list in a single object: a 28-centimetre circle of mirror in a black rim, with a narrow shelf across the lower third holding one taper candle. Lit, the flame appears twice and a soft disc of light sits behind it. The Glim mirror hangs flat against the wall like a picture, which makes it a sensible thing for a hallway or a stairwell, where an ordinary candlestick is knocked over within the week.

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2. MOEBE Wall Mirror Ø70 cm – Glass, A Strap, Two Clips

MOEBE builds in Copenhagen in a way that leaves the fixings in plain sight, and the 70-centimetre wall mirror is the clearest case of it: a frameless disc held by a slim steel strap at the top and two small clips at the foot. There is nothing else to it. On a pale wall the Moebe wall mirror reads less as an object hung up than as a round hole cut through to a brighter room.

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3. AYTM Angui Mirror Oval 78 cm – A Tall Pill In Dusty Rose

The Angui shape is a stadium: two straight sides closed top and bottom by half circles, standing 78 centimetres tall in a narrow lacquered frame. The rose is dusty rather than sweet, and it does something useful in November, warming the grey that comes through the window at it. The Angui mirror is narrow enough for the strip of wall between two windows, or for the back of a door nobody looks at.

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4. Montana Mini MCI Mirror Ø35 cm – Small Circle, Deep Amber

Montana has spent decades lacquering Danish storage in colours other makers would not risk, and the Mini MCI brings that palette down to a 35-centimetre circle. Amber is the pick for this month: a warm brown-gold frame that behaves like the light from a street lamp rather than from a window. Hang the Mini MCI mirror at face height by the front door, where its job is a last look before the rain.

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5. Broste Copenhagen Wavy Mirror – A Frame Cut Into Ripples

Seventy by a hundred centimetres, and the only one here whose frame you notice before the glass: a wide surround in pale warm brown, carved into even ripples like sand left by shallow water. The Wavy mirror can hang, but it is happier leaning against a bedroom wall with its lower edge on the floor, where the ripples catch the raking light of a bedside lamp and the glass takes in the whole room.

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6. Scandi Living Sphere Mirror Ø60 cm – The One You Stop Seeing

A 60-centimetre circle in a frame so thin and so white that on a white wall it stops registering as furniture within a day. That is the point. The Sphere mirror is for the wall above a chest of drawers or a dining table, the place where you want more light and no more decoration. Put it where it can see a window and the room gains a bright patch it did not have.

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7. Cooee Design Woody Mirror – An Arch For A Shelf

Thirty-two by forty-one centimetres with an arched top, framed in oak that is left pale. Small mirrors are usually asked to work hard in bathrooms; this one would rather stand on a console or a shelf, tipped back against the wall among books and a candle. The Woody mirror brings an old, forgiving shape into a flat room, and the oak keeps its warmth under cold light.

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8. Normann Copenhagen Flip Mirror – Tilts To Find Your Face

A table mirror on a short stem, with a soft rectangle of glass that pivots in its mount and an oval base below it in the same grey. The base is the clever part: it is a dish, which means rings, hairgrips and reading glasses stop migrating round the house. Set the Flip mirror on a desk beside the window and tilt it up, and it throws daylight back at whoever is sitting there.

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9. Ferm Living Poise Hand Mirror – Brass, On A Hook

A hand mirror in brass with a flat handle that ends in a loop, so it hangs on a hook by the door instead of disappearing into a drawer. Brass is the warmest metal in this list against a grey afternoon, and the round face is just big enough to be useful without becoming a vanity piece. The Poise hand mirror is also the one small enough to travel.

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10. New Works Aura Wall Mirror Small – A Disc Set At A Slant

The last one barely counts as a mirror and earns its place anyway: a small polished steel disc mounted at an angle on a short cylinder, standing clear of the wall so it takes light from the side rather than head on. Nobody checks their hair in it. What the Aura wall mirror does is put a bright point at the turn of a stairwell or in a corner the lamps never reach.

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Final Thoughts

One mirror in the right place beats three in the wrong ones. Before hanging anything, stand where you usually sit and look for what the glass would see: a window, a lamp, the pale end of a hallway. A mirror facing a blank wall only doubles the blank wall. Height matters as much as position, and most mirrors go up too high, which is why so many of them reflect ceiling.

The other argument for buying one well is that mirrors do not wear out and do not date in the way a lamp can. A frame in oak, lacquered steel or plain brass will still be hanging there in twenty winters. All ten are stocked in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark, and the asking price moves between shops and across borders, so compare them on ScandiDeals before you decide which wall gets the second window.