Hanging on the wall a bas-relief sculpture of a tree: trunk, branches and branchlets individually fashioned of iron, flat leaves of polished silver. When activated the branches pull the leaves together edge-to-edge to form a silver-surfaced wall-mirror, while migrating outwards to form a frame with knurled-iron edging. Deactivate it and it returns to being an ornamental fixture.
Activation is either manual (an artfully hidden wheel) or a near-object sensor with a sensitivity control (ie: do you want to set it as you walk past, or do you want to have to wave your hand in front of it). Also available is a crude speech recognition circuit keyed to the phrase "Mirror, mirror on the wall...".-- FlyingToaster, Aug 19 2009 Essential in every good home +-- xenzag, Aug 19 2009 Incomplete without a motion sensor alarm that causes the deadly sharpened leaves to detach and fly across the room to repel intruders.-- DrWorm, Aug 19 2009 I didn't think of using a sensor because it would be annoying, setting it off everytime you walked past, but variable sensitivity would work, thanks.-- FlyingToaster, Aug 19 2009 random, halfbakery