Paint an old rug with chevron stripes

Even an old grubby rug can be given a new lease on life, with a little creativity and some paint. When applied properly, today's acrylic paints allow you to experiment on materials you normally wouldn't dream of painting... like an old rug for example.

 

 

Jenna at SAS Interiors transformed a worn rug with masking tape and paint and here's how she did it. Here is a before shot of my old, ugly sisal rug that I’ve had for years. I wanted to add the stylish chevron pattern, so I took the worn and blah sisal rug from my front foyer and vamped it up with some colour and pizzaz!

 

 

Let’s start the revamp.

First, you need your tools. Using the right tools always makes the project so much easier. Figuring out the pattern was a little tricky and I had to do some calculations to make sure the pattern was centred on the rug. (Even with using my handy-dandy calculator and drawing, I still made mistakes)…no biggie…it’s handmade, right? That’s the beauty of it…

I found the centre mark with two measuring tapes and using masking tape started making my zig zag line from that point. Once you’ve got the centre point and first line complete (which is the most difficult part of the project), it's smooth sailing. I chose a zig zag width of 10cm thick and it made sense for this rug size.  Thinner or thicker stripes could also work. Continue your zig zag stripes to create your beautiful chevron patterned rug.

It’s time to start painting! I chose the colours of chocolate and burnt orange in a matt acrylic paint. Both colours I already had from other painting projects in the house. At this point, I’ve spent nothing for this project (I even had the masking tape from a recent renovation).

Because the rug had a worn look from years of foot traffic, I wanted to create a distressed, non-perfect chevron look. Using a dry brush method, I applied one coat of paint in a stipple style. I love how the rug looks with the vibrant coloured striped fabric on the bench.