Cloth-Painting a Rug and Other Such Nonsense

I am not exactly sure what possessed me to do this project but I did.  I suspect the key word here is possessed.

The husband and I were in Lowe’s a couple of months ago and I saw this rug perched on a sales rack in the middle of the aisle.

*Perfect size for the laundry room = CHECK

*Exact pattern design I wanted = CHECK

*Amazingly low sale price = CHECK

*Black & white = BIG FAT NO

Three out of four ain’t bad, right?

When I pointed the rug out to the husband and told him how perfect I thought it would be for the laundry room the following conversation played out…

Husband: You know it is orange, right?

Wife: I know, I’m going to paint it.

Husband: You can paint rugs?

Wife: Sure people do it all of the time on Pinterest.

Husband: Just because people do stupid things and post them on Pinterest doesn’t make it a good idea.

True there are a bunch of painted rug tutorials floating around on Pinterest.  However they all assume that you are taking a blank rug and adding some sort of pattern to it where you tape off your pattern and pretty much roll paint over the entire rug.

How much harder would it be to take an existing pattern and paint over part of it….?  I had to try.  I figured even if it ended up looking like total crap I would only be out about 8 bucks.  

Long live stupidity!

Step 1: I did a bit of research and most of the people painting rugs recommended using a fabric additive to mix with your paint.  I didn’t expect or need a fluffy soft rug as it was destined for the laundry room but I didn’t want a rock hard unbending mass either.  I ended up using a Martha Stewart fabric paint medium additive, it seemed to do the trick.

Step 2: I mixed my paint with the additive according to the directions on the additive container.  2 parts paint to 1 part additive.

Step 3: Initially I thought I might try to tape over the white lines to ensure I didn’t get black everywhere.  I quickly abandoned that plan after a few minutes as it was going to take forever to get everything lined-up correctly.  Sometimes you just have to go for it!  Using a small foam brush I carefully dabbed paint along the white edge of each of the patterns.  I will admit my first couple outlines were not the best and that part of the rug is positioned the furthest away from the laundry room door.  I did eventually get the hang of it and subsequent patterns looked much sharper. 

Is the rug perfect, nope.  Does it look pretty darn good, good enough for a laundry room…heck yes! 

Even the skeptical husband conceded that the rug turned out not too shabby.

Gotta go post my stupidity to Pinterest.