A Painted Rug - Worth Miles of Tape and Sore Knees?

Remember the Dash & Albert rug I mentioned earlier this week? The one that I heart and wrote sonnets for and want for my laundry room?

Yeah, that one.

Well. I'm sort of working on my laundry room, but not really working on my laundry room right now. And since I'm not a fan of financing my decorating whims with credit cards, my laundry room budget is pretty much nonexistant right now. So when I found a flatweave rug on clearance at Target last week, I decided to try this rug painting business that's circling the blog world.

{ The Rug, Before }

I needed to cover the entire rug before painting new stripes, so I picked out a sample can of blue paint at Lowe's, and threw some fabric medium into the mix. Did it make a difference? Hmm. Probably not, but since fabric medium is designed for acrylic paint, and wall paint is acrylic latex, I decided to fudge it and throw some in, just in case. I have zero idea if it made a difference in the final product, but in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to...well, disclose.

After the blue paint was dry, I started taping the stripes. 

Then the craziness started. Oy, my knees hurt.

 After all that crazy knee-bruising fun, I pulled it all off and saw my finished rug.

I like it. I don't luuuuuuurve it, but I think it will do nicely in my laundry room until I I can throw a little budget Dash & Albert's way, if you get my drift. I even like the lines where the paint bled a little, I think it makes it look more woven. It's so faux-bulous.

{ The Rug, After}

Next time though, I think I'd opt for a simpler rug painting project... as in buy-a-solid-colored-rug-and-stencil-a-fabulous-design-on-it.

All in all, though -- I definitely think it was worth it.

Project Breakdown

clearanced rug $9.98

paint $5.26

fabric medium $6.16

green frog tape $5.98

Total Cost: $27.38

Total Time (excluding dry time): 2 hours

Sharing this post at: Just a Girl, Be Different Act Normal, The Stories of A to Z, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Centsational Girl, The Lettered Cottage, Thrifty Decor Chick