Dana had a cheap flatweave rug from Ikea that was getting moved out of her boys' bedroom and into the living room. Along the way she decided to give the rug a little upgrade by adding her own DIY stripes to it. Check out the results after the jump…
After vacuuming the rug and laying it out over a tarp, Dana used painters tape to create guides for her stripes. She was careful to measure the stripes and to press down the edges of the tape firmly to prevent the paint from bleeding. She also wrote little X's on the rug to make sure she painted only the areas where she wanted color.
Once taped, Dana used a roller to apply flat interior wall paint to the rug. As anyone who has ever gotten regular paint on fabric will tell you, once it's dry, it's not going anywhere. No need for any special paint, just the patience to let the rug dry. Once the entire rug was painted, Dana removed the tape and let it dry for 24 hours.
The end result is an easy, affordable and colorful rug.
To see all the details on this project, visit Dana's blog — House*Tweaking: DIY Painted Rug.
(Images: House*Tweaking)
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Awesome! I worry I'd have the precision and patience to get things straight. Great job.
Hot damn, I never would've thought you could paint a rug with wall paint. This is brilliant.
Hey, I have that rug in my office. I'm sitting on it right now. I never thought to try this before but I've seen it. I have some great navy blue wall paint that I've never used so I think I'm going to give this a try.
Well, I have that rug but definitely not the patience to paint it... glad that you did though because it looks great!
Brillliant
Doesn't it need some sort of primer?
Nope. I've gotten a lot of questions asking how the paint holds up on the rug. My response is it's just like accidentally getting paint on your clothes. Once it's fully dried, there's no getting it off - primer or not.
Very very nice and fresh.
Did you already try to clean (dry clean?) or wash the rug? Since it is light colour I expect to have to clean it every once in a while.
I've done this with curtains. Turned out great!
I'm very envious of that rug DIY b/c no matter how many times I've thought about doing that with the ERSLEV, there is no way it would survive in my house. My kids would find a way to destroy it. They killed the last striped rug that I bought in under 6 months.
Nice! Think of the possibilities!!!
Love this. Definitely going to do it myself as I've been wanting a big coloful rug for my living room without the accompanying big price tag.
@housetweaking would you say it's in the realm of possibility to paint different colored stripes with edges that meet? (ie. no white stripes separating the painted stripes) Or would paint bleed be too much of a problem?
Wow, I'm impressed with Dana's bravery and skill and most definitely with the outcome. Well done!
CraigM; I'd say letting one stripe thoroughly dry and then paint the stripe next to it to avoid any bleeding. This is an interesting idea and yes once paint is dry on fabric, it's there. Impressed that 'out of the boys bedroom' all that was needed was vacuuming.
I would like to see a close up of one of these
I've been collecting inspiration for our new apartment, and this is going into my archive! What a great idea!