Frameless Rectangular Full Length Mirror 200 x 120cm

With no frame the glass runs to the edge, so a frameless mirror 200 x 120cm reads as a hole in the wall into a second room rather than an object on it: no line in black or gold to match, nothing for the eye to stop at, two metres of light. The bevelled edge is what stops that reading as a bathroom tile. A bevel is a slope ground into the glass around its perimeter, usually a centimetre or two wide, which catches the light in a bright band and gives the mirror a visible edge without a frame; it is only possible on glass of 4mm and up because there has to be depth to grind, and it is the detail that separates a bevelled mirror from a plain cut sheet. Most frameless mirrors lean on their bare glass edge; this one is mounted on a steel backing, which is why it weighs 35.5kg and not the 24kg of the glass alone, and why it hangs and leans like a framed mirror.

It is the mirror for an entrance hall, a dressing room or a landing that wants light and no colour decision, and the wrong mirror for a room that wants a shape on the wall, where the Gentle Arch 200 x 120cm or the Window Pane 200 x 120cm at the same price do that job.

The maker fits the hanging hardware for either orientation, which makes this one of two mirrors in our range made to hang landscape, with the Rectangular 160 x 60cm. Portrait, a 200 x 120 mirror hung with the bottom edge 20cm up tops out at 220cm, shows anyone to about 225cm and two people side by side, and needs 2.2m of clear wall. Landscape it is 120cm tall and 200cm wide: hung with the bottom edge 90cm up above a console, a sideboard or a run of drawers it shows you from the knees up and reflects two metres of room, which in an entrance hall facing the door or a dining room facing a window is the whole trick. Either way the bevel runs all round, so there is no top or bottom to the glass itself.

Above 30kg, hang from a batten: timber screwed across two studs or into brick, levelled before the glass comes near it, with the fitted hanging points on the steel backing dropping onto it. Where the points land on two timber studs, wood screws straight in work; brick or block otherwise takes two nylon plugs and screws rated above 35.5kg into the brick; dot-and-dab wants long frame fixings through to the masonry; cavity anchors are never an option. The difference from a framed mirror is in the handling: there is no frame to grip, so two people lift with the flats of their hands on the back and the edges, never by the bevel, which is a ground slope and the one part of the glass that chips. A third person guides on stairs. The hanging guide covers each wall and the full length wall mirror page the weight tables.

Leaning in a dressing room is possible because the steel backing gives it a flat base, which a bare-glass frameless mirror does not have: felt pads under the base, about 24cm out for seven degrees, and an anti-tip strap or screw eye and cable at the top fitted before anyone leaves the room, with the bracket on the backing rather than the glass. Never in a hall. The securing guide covers the strap.

A frameless mirror shows its edges, so two habits matter more here than on a framed one. Clean with glass cleaner sprayed on the cloth rather than the mirror, so liquid does not run over the bevel and into the back where the silver and the backing live; that is how edge spotting, the black creep from the edge inward that old mirrors develop, gets started. And keep it in a dry room: the glass quality standard for interior mirrors, BS EN 1036-1, excludes constantly humid rooms, and a frameless mirror with exposed edges is the last mirror to put in a steamy bathroom. The bevel itself wants a dry microfibre cloth; a damp one leaves a tide mark along the slope. The cleaning guide has the streak-free method and the glass thickness guide explains why bevelling needs 4mm glass.

Seven other mirrors share this size and all cost £399.95. The Gentle Arch and Arched at 35.3 and 33.2kg add a curve in black or gold; the four window designs at 38 to 39kg add a grid. This is the one with no frame, no colour and a bevel, and the only one that hangs landscape. The Rectangular 160 x 60cm at £189.95 is the other mirror in the range made for either orientation, framed and at bedroom size; the Wooden 200 x 100cm is the two-metre mirror that is furniture rather than light.

Dispatched within one working day from UK stock and delivered in two to seven working days on a two-person service, to your door and into a ground-floor room where the route allows; free to mainland UK, offshore postcodes quoted by email. The carton is a little over 200 x 120cm and travels on its long edge; measure the front door, any right-angle turn and the half landing first, and read the guide to moving a large mirror. One carton: the mirror on its steel backing with the hanging hardware fitted, no plugs, screws, batten or strap. Open it the day it arrives with the carton upright and someone steadying it, run a hand along the whole bevel for chips, which is where a frameless mirror takes a knock, check the glass edge to edge in good light, and photograph anything cracked, chipped or marked with the carton and the label within 24 hours; a replacement is dispatched free and the damaged one stays with you. Change of mind is 14 days, unused and in its packaging, at your carriage cost. The delivery and returns pages have the detail, and every mirror we sell is on the full length mirrors page.