Installing a new bathroom mirror

Bathroom mirrors are not only practical items, which allow you to shave, apply make-up, pluck your eyebrows, or do your hair in the bathroom, but also decorative pieces.

Strategically placed mirrors can reflect a view from outside your window or an internal part of your bathroom, such as an attractive piece of bathroom furniture, the basin and tap, or accessories such as a vase of flowers or group of candles, to enhance a your sense of space. They can also reflect light, casting it into shadowy corners and making the room feel lighter and even bigger.

An illuminated bathroom mirror is especially useful in a small or slightly gloomy bathroom, as the integral lighting ensures that you are lit from the front and can see your own reflection perfectly without shadows cast from ceiling lighting. Lights will often be set out in such a way that they create an attractive pattern or light up a frosted feature panel or panels in the mirror.

Illuminated mirrors come in many shapes and sizes, and the light will be different too. Some have coloured lighting, some white. Some may be LED lit, others have other, less energy efficient, forms of lighting. Although LED lights are more expensive to buy and to replace, they are much more efficient and will last longer, so it's likely to be a worthwhile choice for your wallet as well as for the planet.

Bathroom mirrors are all 'ingress protection' (IP) rated: an IP rating of 44 or above means that you can position your illuminated bathroom mirror anywhere in the bathroom, with the exception of actually within the bath or shower enclosure. If you wish to install an illuminated mirror here, you'll need to choose a design that's low voltage and totally immersion proof (IP67 or higher).

One option worth considering when you're thinking of buying a bathroom mirror is a bathroom mirror cabinet. These are especially handy pieces of bathroom furniture if you're short of space in the bathroom, as you get not only a mirrored surface on your wall, but also some useful storage space for your medicines or hygiene products.

When installing your mirror, first of all choose your spot and ensure you're not in any danger of drilling into any electrical cables in your bathroom wall. Consider things like direction of natural light (unless you have an illuminated mirror) and ease of daily use when you're deciding where to position your mirror. Ensure you're happy with the placement of the mirror, first by holding it up yourself and getting up close, as you will when using it; then asking someone else to hold it in the same position, while you look at it from further away, to gauge how it appears in relation to the rest of your bathroom. Use a spirit level to ensure the mirror is straight, and mark the position of its four corners lightly on the wall to use as a guide while you drill your fixing holes.

To create these fixing holes, first measure very carefully, then double check your measurements - then drill. Take care if you're drilling through tile not to crack the tile: using a hard drill bit and applying gentle pressure for a sustained period while drilling will give you a higher chance of drilling your holes without mishap than using brute force. If your wall consists of brick or blockwork beneath its plaster, you'll need to insert wall plugs into your wall holes to screw into; if it's a timber stud wall you won't. Ensure you drill into the hardest part of the wall to increase your mirror's staying power: drilling into the mortar between bricks, or into the plaster board between timber studs, will not give a satisfactory hold for your screw fixing.