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One proportion rule, drawn from the mistake we see most often: a round mirror above a piece of furniture should measure between half and two thirds of that furniture's width. Wider, and it crushes the piece. Narrower, and it floats like a forgotten plate on the wall. This holds for a hall console and a bedroom chest alike.

Frames and materials: smooth finishes are over

The frame has regained its importance, and its texture has changed. The mirrors we are choosing this season carry ribbed wood, raw slightly grainy plaster, patinated metal that has lost its factory shine, and tightly woven rattan. These are surfaces that catch raking light instead of bouncing it back in one hard sheet.

That materiality counts for even more in our lime-plaster interiors. A smooth gilded frame on a mineral wall creates a stiff, hotel-like disconnect. A limed oak frame, or plaster tinted tone on tone, disappears into the wall and lets the reflection do the work. That is exactly what we are after.

For houses around Châteauneuf-Grasse leaning into warm autumn tones, ochre, rust and burnt earth, we avoid cold metals. Unlacquered brass, soft bronze and pale wood hold the conversation with those colours far better. Chromed steel cools the whole room in a second.

The large floor mirror, and when it works

The full-length mirror leaning against a wall has become a fixture. It works beautifully in three situations and fails in almost every other, which explains why it sometimes ends up in everybody's way in a corridor.

It works when ceilings are high enough for the mirror to reach 170 centimetres or more without looking squashed. It works when it faces a source of natural light at an angle rather than head on, which avoids the searchlight effect. And it works when the floor is worth doubling, because a floor mirror reflects the floor as much as the room. Tomettes, old parquet and stone all qualify.

It fails in narrow passages, in children's rooms, and in any room where nobody thinks to anchor it to the wall with a safety fixing. That fixing is not optional. A large mirror is heavy and slides on old tiles far more easily than people expect.

Room by room, what we place and where

In the entrance hall we favour a round or arched mirror above a narrow console, at a height that lets you look at yourself standing straight rather than leaning in. The hall is also the room where a mirror gets the most use, so we pay attention to the light around it, ideally two sources either side rather than one ceiling fitting.

In the sitting room, one large mirror beats three small ones. We hang it perpendicular to the window, never directly opposite, so it spreads the light rather than throwing it straight back. Above a fireplace, the proportion rule is the same as for a console.

In the bedroom we keep mirrors away from the bed. A reflection moving in half-darkness helps nobody fall asleep, and clients raise this every time we bring it up. A cheval mirror in a corner, angled towards the window, does the same job without that drawback.

In the bathroom, the real question is not the mirror but what lights it. A single fitting overhead carves shadows into a face. Two side sconces at face height give flat, honest light. We then choose an anti-fog treatment for rooms with little ventilation.

The five mistakes we correct most often

First, the mirror hung too high, almost always because a nail was already there. Second, the mirror reflecting an empty wall, or worse, a cupboard door. Third, multiplication: four small mirrors of different shapes on one wall create a restlessness the room never recovers from.

The fourth mistake is a mirror facing another mirror. The corridor becomes an endless tunnel, and that effect wears thin within two days. The fifth is rarer and cannot be undone. A mirror facing due south with no filter concentrates sunlight onto a fabric or a rug and bleaches it within one season.

None of these is a matter of taste. They are questions of position and proportion, which means they can be fixed in half a day, usually without buying anything new.

How we work in Châteauneuf-Grasse

We work in houses in Châteauneuf-Grasse and the surrounding villages, from Opio to Valbonne, on decoration and furniture arrangement. In practice we come and look at the room at two different hours of the day, we measure heights and openings, then we put forward two or three costed directions with specific references.

Our work stops at decoration, at the choice of materials, colours, furniture and objects. It is a craft of composition and of the eye, and that boundary is clear from the first meeting.

A well-chosen mirror rarely costs much next to what it changes. It is probably the best ratio there is between a modest outlay and an effect you notice every day, from the first coffee to the orange light coming back up off the hills at the end of the afternoon.