Antok Arched Floor Mirror: My Honest Take, Pros and Cons

For about ten years the only full length mirror in this house was the one screwed to the back of the closet door. Before that it was the bathroom mirror, which shows you from the collarbone up if you stand at exactly the right angle and suck in your breath. I am not someone who thinks a room is unfinished without a mirror. I am someone who likes clothes, and getting dressed in front of a closet door mirror means backing out into the hallway to see whether the shoes actually work. So in January I ordered the Antok arched floor mirror, 71 inches tall and 28 inches wide, and Gary carried the box in from the front porch.

It has been standing in the master bedroom for about ten months now, in the corner opposite the window. Nothing has broken. Nothing has chipped. The glass still looks like glass. But there are four or five things about this mirror I wish somebody had said out loud before I clicked buy, and one of them is the reason I nearly hauled it back to the porch the first week. So this is not a love letter. It is what I would tell a friend if we were standing in the aisle of a store and she had her hand on the box.

How I've Actually Lived With It

Here is the honest version of a normal Tuesday. I get up, I walk past it, and I stop for about four seconds to see whether the sweater I laid out last night works with the pants. That is the whole job, and it does the job. Before January I was making that same decision in the bathroom under a bulb that makes everything look faintly green, and then walking away hoping for the best.

A concrete example, because vague praise is not worth much to anybody. Back in April I had a wedding to go to up in Nashville, and I laid three dresses out on the bed and could not settle on one. I put the first on, stood in front of the Antok, and knew inside of ten seconds it was wrong. Too short in the waist, and I could see it plain as day from the shoulders down. The second dress was better on top and wrong at the hem. The third one I would never have picked in the bathroom mirror, because from the collarbone up it looked like nothing special. From the shoes up, it was the one. I wore it and got three compliments before the cake was even cut.

The bigger surprise was what it did to the room itself. The master bedroom has one window, and it looks out into the side yard, so by two in the afternoon it turns into a soft gray space that I had mostly given up on. The Antok sits opposite that window and throws the daylight back across the bed. I did not expect to care about that. I care about it more than I care about the mirror, and if you had told me that in December I would have laughed at you.

I want to be plain about one thing before we go further, because it is the part of this review that matters most. I did not wall mount it. I did not lean it. I have not moved it since February. It stands on the stand that came in the box, tilted back the way that stand holds it, and that has been the right call for this house. Everything I say below about how it feels to live with comes from that one setup, not from a wall mounted install.

The Size Is the Whole Story

Seventy-one inches is tall. I am five foot four, and the Antok shows me from the top of my head to my shoes with room left over, which means I can judge a hemline without walking backward into the dresser. Twenty-eight inches is wide. That sounds generous on paper, and then you set it in a corner and realize the width is the thing that makes it read as furniture instead of a mirror on a stick.

What nobody says in the listing is that you have to plan the floor, not just the wall. Between the stand and the backward tilt, it claims more room than a flat measurement suggests, and it wants a corner where nobody walks. My first spot was between the dresser and the closet door and I lasted four days. Every time I opened that closet I had to turn sideways like a crab, and Gary found it funnier than I did.

What I finally did was get out Gary's tape measure and mark the floor with strips of blue painter's tape before I committed to any spot at all. Twenty-eight inches wide, plus the stand, plus a little air behind it where it tilts back. I left that tape outline down for a solid week and just lived around it, and the tape told me more than the listing ever did. I stepped over it twice in the first three days, which is exactly how the corner opposite the window won. If you are ordering one of these, that is the twenty minutes I would spend before you click buy.

If your bedroom is the size of a postage stamp, measure twice and be honest with yourself about the answer. If you have an empty corner that has been quietly collecting a laundry basket for six years, this is a good use for it. That is exactly the corner I had, and I have not once missed the laundry basket.

Three Ways to Set It Up, and the One I Chose

The mirror is made to be used three ways. Freestanding on the included stand, mounted flat to the wall, or leaned back against a wall. The stand came in the box and Gary had it together in a few minutes with no swearing and no missing screws, which around here counts as a good afternoon. That is my setup, and it is what I would recommend to anyone who is not one hundred percent certain where she wants the thing to live.

Wall mounting is the tidiest option and the one I ruled out. Our house went up in 1978, and I have drilled enough holes in these walls over the years to know that I want to be certain about a spot before I commit to it. Mounting also means the mirror cannot move, and I am a person who rearranges the bedroom twice a year whether the bedroom needs it or not. I like being able to change my mind on a Saturday.

Leaning is the third option and it would be fine in a room with no traffic. Ours is not that room. The vacuum bumps into things and I bump into things, and a big piece of glass resting on nothing but gravity makes me nervous. I will say the stand has a benefit I did not anticipate. It holds the mirror at a slight backward tilt, and that tilt seems to catch more of the window light than a flat piece of glass would.

What Nobody Tells You About a Mirror in a Dim Room

The best thing about a full length mirror in a bedroom with one window is not the mirror. It is the second window it makes. That is the part of the listing nobody writes out, because you cannot photograph it and it does not fit in a bullet point. A mirror facing a window bounces that light back into the room, and in a room that was always a little gloomy, that is worth more than the frame, the arch, and the finish combined.

For two weeks it sat beside the dresser, angled toward the closet door, and I told myself the light was fine. It was not fine. It was a mirror, and nothing more than a mirror. Then on a Saturday in early February I dragged it about four feet over to the corner opposite the window, mostly because I wanted the other corner clear for the laundry basket, and the whole room changed by two in the afternoon. Same mirror. Same room. Same furniture. The only thing that moved was the glass, and it went from being a thing I owned to being a thing that worked.

It also shows you the room from an angle you never see. I found out in January that the lampshade on my side of the bed had been crooked for two years. Two years. Gary claims he never noticed, which I do not entirely believe, but I have decided to let it go.

A mirror facing a window is not decoration. It is a second window, and it did more for my bedroom than the last two lamps I bought.

Now the warning, and this is the one I would shout across a store at a stranger. Placement matters more than the mirror. Mine sat in what turned out to be the wrong corner for two weeks before I thought to try the other one, and the difference between those two corners was the difference between a mirror and a window. Move it six inches and the whole effect changes. That is not decorating advice, that is just how light works.

The Frame, the Weight, and Moving Day

The Antok frame is aluminum, finished in gold, and thin enough that the glass is what you notice rather than the metal around it. I will be honest about the finish, because this is the thing product photos get wrong on nearly everything. In a room with one window it reads a little cooler and a little shinier than it does on a screen. It is a nice modern metal. It is not fine furniture, and it is not trying to be. If you are matching it against genuine antique brass, look closely and make your own call.

It is heavy. The listing describes the glass as explosion proof, which in plain English means there is a safety layer behind it so that if the glass ever does break it holds together instead of scattering across the floor. I am not going to test that, and I hope I never find out. What I can tell you is that I cannot carry this mirror by myself and I would not try. Gary brought it in from the porch, and in February when we shifted it across the room we used two people and a folded blanket on the floor.

That February move taught me what the box does not. We laid an old quilt down on the hardwood, tipped the mirror back onto it, and slid it the four feet instead of lifting it clear of the floor. Gary took the top, I took the base, and we counted out loud so neither of us let go early. Whole thing took maybe ninety seconds, my back was fine the next morning, and the frame did not pick up a mark. If you are planning to move this alone, do not. Wait for a second person or wait for a Saturday when one is available.

Maintenance is nothing. The glass is real glass, so it shows fingerprints and it collects dust like every other mirror in history. I wipe it once a week with a microfiber cloth, top to bottom, and the aluminum frame gets a damp cloth when it looks dull. That is the entire routine. Ten months in, there is not a scratch on the frame and not a spot on the glass that would not come off.

Who This Is For

This mirror is for the woman with a bedroom corner that catches light and nowhere to see a whole outfit. It is for someone who does not want to drill into a wall, who wants the freedom to move the piece to the other corner next spring when the mood strikes. It is for a room that needs brightening more than it needs another lamp, which describes a great many older houses with small windows and one overhead fixture in the middle of the ceiling.

It also suits anyone who is dressing for a real day and needs to see her shoes. If you have ever stood on tiptoe in front of a bathroom mirror squinting at the length of a skirt, you already know exactly what this fixes. The arched top is pretty, and I like it, but the honest reason I would buy this again is the light and the full length view.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your bedroom is tight. Twenty-eight inches of width, plus the stand, plus room to back up and actually use the thing means you want a genuine corner or a clear stretch of wall. A small room will feel smaller with this standing in it, no matter how good the light gets. Skip it too if you are decorating around true antique brass or warm vintage gilt. The aluminum frame is a modern metal and next to an older piece it will look like exactly what it is.

And skip it if what you want is a mirror that hangs flat and disappears. My sister Donna has one of those tall narrow wall mirrors from IKEA and she loves it, and I can see why. It takes up no floor at all and it is out of the way. It is a different animal from this one, though, and it does a smaller job. If you want a mirror that stands there, adds a little daylight, and gives you a place to judge an outfit, that is this one. If you want nothing on your floor, it is not.

One last thing, and then I will get out of your way. Nothing about this mirror is dramatic. It did not change my life and it did not make my bedroom look like a magazine. It made a dim room brighter and it made getting dressed easier, and after ten months those are still the two things I notice every single morning.