It's been a month! Yikes. I never intended to go this long with out a post...... where did the time go? I have been busy, busy, busy. Painting my house, Canadian Thanksgiving, still trying to balance being a wife and mom to 3 kiddos, a teething baby, and trying to feel like a normal human in the midst of it all....but some how I still manage to find time for projects and painting. This next post and tutorial all started with a piano......
This is our piano. I found it for free on craigslist last year. Unfortunately, it's been living in our garage for the past year. When the movers delivered it, they decided it was too much work to move it up our front porch, and demanded more money. When we refused, they left it in our drive way. Not knowing how to properly move a piano, it went in to the garage, where it remained till some awesome friends offered to help us out. Just in time for The husbands birthday this year. It's the gift that keeps on giving!
This is where inspiration began. With the piano now in the house, we needed a rug to go beneath it. To help protect the tiles below, and for sound quality. So, I began my hunt for rugs. Which ended pretty quickly when I realized there is nothing available in the size I need, and the style I wanted. That settled it. I decided to make what I wanted. Looking around the blog world for inspiration I came across a post over at Little Green Notebook ,I quickly remembered that I had the same two spare Ikea rugs from our old house that just never seemed to work. I was going to dye them, but this just looked so much more fun! So if you want to do this project at home this is what you'll need:
- Rug with a low pile or woven, like this Ikea one that I used. only $8.99
- White masking tape in varying widths. I picked mine up at the dollar store. $2
- box cutter, also from the dollar store. $1
- small size sponge paint roller $2
- paint of your choice. I used a fog grey, that I already had.
- tarp and gloves (if using oil based paint, which I did)
- You'll want to measure your rug and decided where you want the 'V' to meet. I kept it simple by folding my rug in quarters and then using pencil, lightly marked the crease of every fold.
- Next, start taping. You can make any pattern you want. I went with a varying width pattern. This is the step where your box cutter comes in handy. when I came to each point, where I wanted to change the angle I just lightly scored the tape with the blade. Then you get a nice clean line and angle for your next piece of tape. Also, I found that the green painters tape does NOT work. I taped off the whole rug in the green tape, only to come back to paint it the next morning, to find all the tape had curled off.
- Once you have finished taping off your rug, you can start painting. I had paint on hand that I chose to use. I didn't realize that it was an oil base, but I really like the finished product. You will only want a tiny bit of paint on the roller. If you coat the roller then your finished product will most likely be a crunchy rug. A little paint goes a long way with this project. It should look something like this...
4. Now wait. This is always the hardest part for me! I left mine over night. Removing the tape
was practically the first thing I did in the morning and I was SO pleased with the results! The paint on the tape was still tacky, so it couldn't hurt to let it go longer.
Et voila! You have a chevron print rug. I also think that this project could be done in so many different applications. What about faux bois, or a plaid. Endless possibilities! Have fun and please send me a photo if you make your own! Bonsoir till next time people, and I promise it will be sooner than a month!
