Vanity mirrors over windows

I took these photos while we were at the beach last week. The master bathroom in the house we were renting had an interesting design dilemma (and no, I'm not referring to those terrible 80's pendants though those are definitely a dilemma!).

The wall above the vanity had 3 large windows. It let in some wonderful light but left absolutely no space for vanity mirrors.

They solved this problem by mounting 2 (very sad looking) mirrors on hinges on the walls to the left and right of each sink. When not in use, they could be pushed back to lay flush with the wall and leave you with an unobstructed view out the window.

And when you needed to use the mirror, you just pulled it out.

Here's how the vanity area looked when both mirrors were "in use".

I thought this was an interesting, albeit not so pretty solution to the problem. I'd never seen anything like that before. You could easily use this concept to solve a similar problem but make it a whole lot nicer by using a prettier mirror and a piano hinge.

Here are some other (far prettier) solutions to this vanity under windows problem.

I'm torn about how I feel about this. Obviously having big windows in a bathroom is a real luxury. But they can certainly eat up valuable wall space. But then I do love the idea of putting on my makeup with some beautiful natural light... See? Very conflicted about this one.

What do you think? Could you deal with mounting mirrors over some portion of a window in exchange for that kind of natural light? Or would you rather save your windows for over a tub or something and have a more traditional solid wall over the vanity?