Painted Rug for the Dining Room

Everywhere I look I seem to be finding painted rugs.  They are usually done in stripes or chevron patterns on a white Ikea rug or other natural fiber rug.  Although I had my doubts, I decided to grab some tape and a 1/2 gallon of paint and transform our old stained 9x13' PotteryBarn rug into something like this Safavieh Dhurries rug from Rugs USA.

This close-up is to show you the texture of the rug we were working with 

(and also the stains that we wanted to hide- yuck!)

#1. We used exactly two rolls of 3" wide tape.  They were about $12/roll from Lowe's.  First, I taped off the border.  Then, we found a 45 degree angle by measuring 9 feet across and 9 feet down the side of the rug.  It's supposed to be better to start patterns from the center so that if you're off a little it won't show as much as your pattern progresses.  After we had that 45 degree angle taped diagonal, we taped a parallel line every three inches apart.  (30 minutes)

#2. Then we did the same thing in the other direction so that the lines made perfect squares in a grid. (30 minutes)

 #3. The next step took some geometry brain-power.  It made me very glad to be married to an engineer!  Dave drew the design from the rug directly onto the tape.  He basically broke it down into two sets of chevron stripes going in opposite directions, then added the "x" on the ends of every other point!  (30 minutes)

 #4.  We began to cut out the pieces of tape that were not 'drawn on' with Exacto knives. (1.5 hours)

#5. After the pieces were all cut out I began to paint.  I tried using pointers I remembered from stenciling: brush away from the taped edge and dab up and down with the brush.  I used a foam brush that didn't hold much paint.  Towards the end of the project Dave joined me in painting, but since we only had one foam brush, he used a regular paint brush.  I actually really liked the way his turned out better.  Because his brush held so much more paint, his coverage was much better (and I don't think he was as worried as I was about the paint bleeding through the tape).  If I could do it all over, I would definitely use a brush and apply the paint generously to avoid blotches.  I went back to touch up some of mine later but the touch-ups didn't absorb into the rug like the first coat so they looked a little funny, but not too noticeable overall.  It took about two hours to paint the rug. It dried crusty, but I think it will be fine for our purpose in the dining room under a table.  It adds some interest and hides the stains, but I wouldn't recommend painting a rug for a place where you'd want to lie down and roll around on the floor. The whole project took us about six hours ~four of those hours were after the kids were in bed!  We cut tape and painted in dim lighting while watching 'My Cousin Vinny'... DIY and a movie!  That's what I call romance. We let the paint dry overnight.

When we finally took the tape off it was a family affair.  JP and Ezra helped peel off the tape.  JP kept saying things like, "Look, it's a maze! I can't wait to find my way through the maze!"  ha!