How to Paint a Striped Rug

So I've been working really hard on redoing my laundry room. Which is a totally true statement if you replace the words "really hard" with "not really all that hard." Heh.

 

Because some makeovers require tons of time and effort. And some require just a little TLC and some new storage containers. Guess which one my laundry room falls into?

 

Be that as it may (a phrase that instantly ages me by about four decades), I've tried to be pretty creative in this transformation to save a little bit of cash and to focus on reusing what we already have. Because, truly, I'm getting tired of waste. Such a drain on this fine planet of ours!

 

So, yeah. Recycling. Starting with creating the rug of my dreams(ish) out of a rug from my closet.

 

 

I started with this old 3x5 flatweave rug that has literally been folded up in my closet for months if not years.

 

 

Wanting to start with the lightest color, I grabbed some old white interior latex paint and eyeballed the chunkiness of my stripes. That's right. Totally guessed on those suckers. I don't think I even get an "A" for effort here. Dah well. "A" for efficiency. So. That's something.

 

 

I didn't focus so much on paint thickness here as just getting the stripes laid out. Because my rug is a flatweave, it was actually quite simple to keep the lines straight. What I did try to do was make sure the sides of each stripe (as in, down into the weave lines) were crisp and well-painted. It didn't matter if I went outside of my "stripe zone."

 

 

The original woven stripes of my rug did show through for the first 2-3 coats. I probably could've primed the rug first to decrease the amount of absorption, but for some reason that was too much work for me. I kept the coats of paint fairly thin and just worked from one end of the rug to the other, over and over and over again.

 

 

I think I ended up doing four(ish) coats of white paint. Then I grabbed some leftover salmon-coral paint (from my ombre painted dresser) and used this for my darker stripes.

 

I didn't even rinse out my brush, that's how laaazzzzzzzyyyy I went on this project.

 

Same method as with the white stripes, except this time I was more careful about the stripe sides. Because I had focused on getting the white paint thoroughly into the weave "grooves," I just painted my darker lines along the tops of the weave lines for a crisp result.

 

This is making no sense, is it. Sighhh...

 

 

I think I only had enough paint to do two and a half coats of the coral, and it kind of shows the original woven stripes. Not super noticeable in real life, though. I let the freshly painted rug dry overnight and brought it inside the next day.

 

 

Not bad for about an hour of painting and $free$. I love the graphicality that a striped rug adds to a space, especially a cheerful one like a laundry room. Oh, and if you're interested, feel free to check out the complete post on my tiny laundry room makeover.

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