Zig Zag Rug

I loved this rug pictured in the Style at Home 100+ Best Designer Secrets magazine and once again I got  busy rug painting.

I used this tutorial from Pinterest, and I found this indoor/outdoor rug on sale for $20 last month, and I used leftover paint from when I painted the baby's room.

Source: curbly.com via Jayme on Pinterest

I LOVE design magazines, but it is rare that I can actually put ideas to practice. This is because we rent, and it is hard to make sweeping changes to a house you don't own. Also, this is because I have to do these projects in ten minute increments, thanks to my lovable, but nap-averse baby. I need projects that are fairly simple to complete and this couldn't have been simpler. There wasn't even any measuring involved.

Anywho, this is the final result.

I put it in our odd little library, made more odd in the past few months by it's inclusion of a hammock, ugly hammock stand, and our Ode to Newfoundland cardboard moose head. I might be hanging a ukelele in there too.

It is intensely busy in that room. My husband won't even go in there. The baby and I have a lot of cuddle time in that hammock though. And I have a hard time parting with books and art. So decluttering that room has been slow going.

And now I added a rug! Go figure.

Back to the rug.

It needs another few coats of white paint, but I'm trying to pinch some design pennies, and I was literally scraping the paint can to get enough paint down. These rugs absorb the paint quickly, although it is a good thing because any mistakes you make with your first coat fades out. For example, the dog walked across the rug while I was painting it, and got little paw prints everywhere, but you really have to scrutinize the carpet to see them.

This is a picture of it after one coat of paint, just to give you an idea of the disappearing paint phenomenon.

And here again is the final project.

I still have two more rugs I'd like to attempt. One is a playmat for my girlie inspired by this awesome post, and one is for my slowly coming together dining room.

In fact I might move this rug into the dining room, to replicate the magazine picture a little more.

If you want to see the post on my last rug painting attempt, check it out here.

Anyone have any ideas for how I should decorate them? Anyone else on a rug painting kick? 

New Rug for my Rugrats

I have many moments where I find myself coming up for air after a particularly long Pinterest session. So to make the ridiculous amounts of hours I spend on Pinterest feel a little more legitimate, I vowed to complete at least one Pinterst project a week or...GASP...lose my time sucking Pinterest privileges.

So here is the first of many weekly PINspiration posts!

As mentioned before, the town I live in has a Walmart and not much else. So when my dog befouled our living room rug, I didn't have a lot of options for replacements.

To be perfectly honest, I was thrilled about the pup's accident. I hated that rug.

Kirby on the old ugly rug. The accident totally wasn't his fault, by the way. He's a good boy. :)

So my PINspiration for this project were the following:

Source: copycatchic.com via Jayme on Pinterest

this...

Source: curbly.com via Jayme on Pinterest

and this...

Source: thehouseofsmiths.com via Jayme on Pinterest

I love the look of nautical blue stripes to add some color and fun to my living room and I was tired of dog hair embedding itself into the thick wooly piling of the old rug.

Luckily, cheap ugly 6x9 thin carpet remnant rugs were selling at Walmart for $39.99. I purchased the rug, as well as a roll of painters tape, and a gallon of ColourPlace Semi-Gloss Interior paint in this beautiful shade of blue that I don't know the name of (this is my first tutorial, please cut me some slack :/ ). The lady at Walmart who mixed it for me was pretty perplexed that I would purposely ruin a new rug with paint.

"I guess it's bold of you?" she said, unconvincingly.

Clearly she hasn't been wasting weeks collecting rug painting tutorials on Pinterest, as I have.

I taped out the stripes I wanted and used a brush to paint on my thick stripes. The roller wasn't able to spread the paint as well on the textured surface. Painting was hard work because the rug absorbs the paint so fast. It took almost the entire gallon to paint four one foot wide stripes on my rug.

It is helpful to buy a rug that is a color you already like. That way you just have to add your design to it, instead of covering it up in its entirety. You could paint it two colors like the rug from The House of Smiths blog, but I imagine that it would take forever on a 9 x 6 sized rug. (You should check out her tutorial! It was lovely.)

I gave my stripes two coats. It took three long days to dry. I probably checked if it was dry hourly because I was so excited to get it in the house.

Here she is...

Now, Kirby and baby Ellie have a prettier, easier to clean rug to roll around on!

The blue looks great against Kirby's gold fur, and Ellie's primary colored toys scattered all over the place. I smile every time I look at the floor.

The paint doesn't feel sticky on your feet, and the entire project was so easy I'm considering doing another one for our office/library.

I'll post better pictures in the future of the whole room so you can see the cheery effect it has everything.

Now, I have to figure out what to do with the old crappy rug.

Anyone else out there thrilled with the result of their rug painting experience? Does anyone have advice for painting a rug with a stencil (which I think will be the next rug painting adventure)? I'd love to hear about it!

P.S. You can follow me on Pinterest if you'd like. I have a whole board dedicated to rugs because I'm cool like that.

P.S.2: I'm linked up at The 36th Avenue Party.