Photos were posted to the binaries newsgroup, with the following
text:
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Speaking of using marble for decoration somewhere other than on a
floor or counter top, I also did some work with slate that was
both fun and came out well. We had a second place up in the
mountains, and it has a granite tile entry, with a framed mirror
hung over a primitive table to add to the sense of depth. The
mirror's frame was pretty crappy, so one weekend I decided to see
if I could improve on things. A trip to Lowe's found 12" slate
tiles that while having a gray background, also has veins of gold
color, some brown colors and even a bit of green in them. They
looked like they'd been made to go with the entry's granite floor
and the veins matched the stone fireplace that was visible beyond
the entry. Besides, they were cheap.

I bought a couple boxes of the slate tiles, dug out my wet saw,
and found a nice, non-beveled edge 30" X 36" X 1/4" plate glass
mirror. The mirror was glued to the drywall, using mirror mastic
and supported from shear loading of the mastic (while curing out
for a week) by some 8d nails driven into the studs to support the
mirror bottom. The mirror was non-beveled so that the thickness
would closely match the slate surround I planned to make.

The following weekend, I ripped the slate into 1", 2" and 3"
widths on the wet saw. Then, I used Liquid Nails for CCA Decks to
attach the ripped pieces to the drywall. I first surrounded the
mirror with 1" widths of varying lengths, and wasn't very careful
to press everything down tight. I wanted a slightly 3 dimensional
look to the slate. As with the nails I'd removed from below the
mirror, I used dressmaker pins (about an inch long with a glass
head on them) to support the slate pieces until the Liquid Nails
cured. Essentially, each pass took 3 days to do. Each day, I
increased the width of the slate pieces to use the 2" and then the
3" ones.

When the pins for the 3" pieces were finally removed, the mirror
and its frame looked like a million bucks, matching the floor and
complimenting the fireplace, while going well with the little
table and adding depth to the small entry.

--
Nonny

ELOQUIDIOT (n) A highly educated, sophisticated,
and articulate person who has absolutely no clue
concerning what they are talking about.
The person is typically a media commentator or politician.