On Painting Rugs

Yes, I painted a rug. It all started one day at Ikea... Moral of the story, don't take decorating advice from your sister if she has plain different taste.

Okay, I'll back up. I went to Ikea to get this rug, which I had been thinking of ever since a trip to purchase a shelf a few months back. But somebody thought it was waaaaay too busy. It's geometric, not exactly an acid trip in my opinion. Her suggestion: an oriental style rug. Um, contradiction much? So I end up with this, which actually looks very close to that color in the store under florescent lighting, but in my apartment was a very very sad gray-beige. Greige. Gross. However, in her defense, I did like the other rug she helped me pick out for our bedroom. Thanks, sister.

As soon as I saw the rug inside our apartment I knew I hated it. But I put it under our kitchen table/my desk, anyways, to see if I could like it. Nope. But the thought of going back to Ikea to return something seemed far too daunting. Ikea is the biggest time suck. It's like Target on crack. You know it's going to be crowded and a pain and you are going to see way too many things you like and have to fight with yourself to not put them into your cart, which by the way, just kind of floats around lackadaisically unlike other normal shopping carts (what's up with that Ikea?). And then you go outside and it's dark and you realize you were in there for 4 days; you have neglected your life and your children and your dog and probably lost your job--wait, did I say days? I meant hours, I just feels like days. So I was contemplating the impact of this great inconvenience (I've been known to exaggerate from time to time) when I came across this post on The House of Smiths. "I can do that!" I thought.

Let me tell you, Shelly made this look way too easy. She did not even tape down the stripes and hers came out perfect. Mine...well, let's just say it has character. When I don't look directly at it it looks great! However, to give myself a little credit, the rug she used is about half the size of the one I had.

Bottom line: I have a very affordable custom rug for our dinette, which helped me justify going back for the other one (alone).

Would I recommend this project? Yes, if you are very patient.
I am glad I did it? Does it count if I'm glad it's done? Then, yes.
Difficulty? I would say use a smaller rug than I did and consider using painter's tape. Even though it's a pain in the rear, you probably won't regret it. Unless you are going for more of a spontaneous chevron pattern, like mine. I think I'll use "spontaneous" to describe it from now on, it sounds more exiting and less accidental than reality.