Chevron Rug

To say we love chevron is an understatement. In our daily lives we have attempted to create chevron on anything and everything we can find (spoilers for future projects maybe?).

Needless to say, when Tracy brought that plain white rug home from IKEA, we knew exactly what to do with it. Even though this was our first DIY project together, it turned out to be a great success. We were over the moon with the result, and felt a lot more confident to tackle new projects together. 

Materials and tools:

• 1 flat woven rug: we had a 180cm x 250cm IKEA ERSLEV rug. It's very important to use a flat woven rug, because it's a lot easier to paint, and the patterns don't bleed outside the lines.
• 20 250 ml bottles of acrylic paint in the color of your choice (we chose navy blue) 
• Paint brushes: a large one to do an overall coat, and a smaller one to fill in the corners) 
• 2 rolls of painter's tape: we used Frog Tape Multi-Surface. Speaking from our painful experiences of having paint bled through cheap painter's tape, we recommend choosing this brand over others. 
• 1 large piece of cardboard
• Pencil
• Ruler and measuring tape
• Scissors

The Process

Step 1:

We used a scrap piece of paper of A4 paper, scaled to the size of the rug, to precisely draw the pattern we wanted on the rug in terms of number of rows, size etc.

Step 2:

We then used a piece of cardboard to measure off one Chevron-shaped triangle, which we used as a stencil for the rug.

Step 3:

We equally measured the distance across the rug and placed the cardboard to draw on the exact spots we wanted our chevron pattern to be. Then using the painter's tape, taped the entire rug on those marked lines. To make sure the paint won't bleed, we went over the lines with two layers of tape. This turned out to be a great idea, as the lines were very crisp and clean when we ripped the tape off. 

Step 4:

Then we got to painting. To prevent spilling, we lined the sides with newspapers. This took us approximately 6 hours to do (phews!) - an intensely long process, just because the carpet was very crooked and we had to make sure we filled all the the little gaps in. We left it to dry overnight, and went over with another coat of paint in the morning. 

Step 5:

We then went ahead and removed all the tape and filled in all the extra gaps that may have been left. And here it is, we were quite pleased with the final product. Although over time, Tracy's amazing puppy, Martini, has tried his best to create the biggest spills on it, the carpet looks pretty darn amazing with the paint and every thread still intact!