Did you know you could paint a rug? You can!

Painting a rug is a great solution for when you can’t find the colorway or pattern that you have in mind, or maybe the option that you can find is out of your price range. The best types of rugs to paint are ones with very flat weaves, like the Erslev from Ikea. You want a rug that will give you a nice flat surface to work on, especially if you are doing a pattern!

Shelley from The House of Smiths blog painted a chevron rug for her kitchen. I thought her tutorial was awesome, so I wanted to share it with you guys here.  Sometimes all it takes is a little thinking outside the box!

First, she painted her whole rug white, which was her base color. We recommend using MyColor™ inspired by PANTONE®’s Gardenia for this. MyColor™ inspired by PANTONE paint is perfect for this project, because it is nice and thick, so you won’t have to roll on too many coats! Also, it’s great because it doesn’t easily bleed, like some thinner paints. Anyway, use a foam or 1/4 nap roller to roll the paint onto your rug. If you start off with a white rug, you can skip this step!

Next, cut out your pattern with either painter’s tape, or vinyl (you could also use contact paper!).

Now, you are ready to roll on the blue! For this step, we recommend using MyColor™ inspired by PANTONE®’s “Skylight”. Also, I recommend using solely a foam roller for this step. You don’t want to slap the paint on there heavily, you want to do thin coats, to make sure that no paint goes under your tape lines!

and you are done! Such a fun way to bring some color into a room, huh?

I also painted a rug a little while back. I used a basketweave pattern for mine.

Here is my pattern, all taped out:

And, after!

For this look, I’d use MyColor™ inspired by PANTONE®’s Gardenia, and Major Brown as your topcoat.

I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!