There are some colors in the design world that you pay top dollar for. They seem to trickle down to things in stores more moderately priced after a year or two, but what if you can't wait that long? This homeowner tossed her rug in a tub of bleach and took matters into her own hands.
Over at Southern Disposition there was only one thing on the agenda — finding a yellow/greenish rug like all those seen in stores. Like many of us who don't have $1,000 to drop on a rug, this homeowner took matters into her own hands with a simple purchase from IKEA.
The green rug that was purchased was added to a bleach bath and left overnight, drained, rinsed and then dyed with RIT dye to pump in the color desired. The whole process was done in the tub with some help from some rubber gloves and worked beautifully in the end. Check out the whole process (including the somewhat intense sounding cleanup warning) over at Southern Disposition and don't be afraid to try something new and different!
Images: Southern Disposition via Ikea Hackers
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Um, the clean up IS intense. I dye a lot of fabric and I really would not recommend using your bathtub. Try the washing machine and still be prepared for staining. At least it is much easier to scrub it and run several bleach loads thru.
maybe line the bath tub with a cheap plastic drop cloth first? Not sure on how it would still drain though without staining? add bleach afterwards?? I'm going to attempt this for some slip covers, so we shall see.
i've tried many ways to dye rugs and haven't had any luck.
im currently searching for an inexpensive white/beige rug to try hand-painting it.
if that doesn't work, i'm going to try this method, but in the laundry room of our apt building. at least if it stains, i wont have to look at it everyday.
my first venture at dying sheets is happening this weekend. we'll see how it goes dyeing a printed sheet a solid color.
That must be a heavy-duty shower rod. A wet rug would send mine crashing to the floor.
I tried dying some old shorts (my favorite ones) from army green to brown. I bought 2 packets of RIT and used it on the stove top with an pot. It gave off an awful chemical smell but the end results were great. It does get messy no matter how you try to avoid any spills or splashes. I disposed of the liquid in the stainless steel kitchen sink and it seemed fairly easy to clean. I was loathe to experiment in my apartment's public washing machines as I didn't know bad the residue would be. I'm actually glad I didn't try it in my bathroom's porcelain sink or bathtub...
if you read that page, she mentions how it stained her bathtub. She ended up having to scrub it with toilet cleaner to get the stains off. I live in a rental...Im not sure I could get my deposit back after that. Though I bet you could use a giant plastic bin in place of your bathtub.
Buy a baby swimming pool. They're a couple of dollars!
"(You don't want bleach all over everything do you?)"
No of course not, only down the drain and into everything else. :/
I use RIT a lot. I use a giant old plastic storage bin because I hate scrubbing out the tub. Plus if it stains, it won't matter.
I used to dye cloth in a large metal pot on the stove top, and the pot was cleanable. Unfortunately, nothing I dyed was dye-fast afterward. It required separate hand-washing, and even then the dyes from the dyed cloth would wind up on other things. The things I dyed looked very pretty, but I eventually stopped dying because it created too much extra housework.
Miami's Elaine: dye needs to be "fixed" to be permanent. For cotton and other plant fibers, soda ash added to the dye bath after the fabric will fix the color. For silk, wool, and "animal" fibers, you need an acid like white vinegar.
I don't know about taking on a rug, but I have white cotton bath mats that have seen better days. I think I'll start small - use plastic buckets (my tub has been treated to look white but the treated paint is already peeling - yuck) so I know I'd never get the dye off. All that said, I have rug envy because the rug shown looks great.
Never dye anything in a white bathtub. I like the baby pool idea above though.
@nccata, Thanks, that's good to know. I used only salt.
I've just been working on dyeing large quantities of fabric for a reupholstery project. If you don't want dye all over your bathroom, use a fiber-reactive dye like Procion from Dharma Trading Co. It only dyes fibers, as the name implies, so you shouldn't have any trouble with a porcelain tub (I have used them in my washing machine without any staining--none, zero, zilch). That said, be careful with fiberglass--I don't have any experience dyeing in a fiberglass tub and have heard rumors that it will take the color.
And yes, you should really set the dye if you don't want it coming off. Soda ash is your buddy.
For smaller jobs a kiddie pool is just too big, plus you have to inflate/deflate it each time. A better container would be a large sweater bin, the ones with a lid that is "hinged" in the middle are quite large and even have wheels, helpful if you have to move it while there's water or a wet piece of fabric inside.
I did an erslev rug in the bath tub, dying is a light grey / blue, and it totally worked! And no scrubbing of the tub at all, it didn't stain it one bit. I then used a bleach pen to trace out a design. It was a lot of work to do, but totally worth it.
Check it out here:
http://www.crackedoutfish.com/2012/08/diy-moroccan-dhurrie-rug.html