ikea hack - my striped rug!

i love stripes. a lot a lot. i've pinned about a million striped rugs for the baby room but sadly, they were all out of my tiny price range. so why not just paint one?

this was one of the first projects i knew i wanted to do for the baby room... and the one that i was most nervous about. but i also realized it would be a lot harder to do this really huge and pregnant, and since i'm growing by the hour these days, i made myself get it done before we left for christmas. and it felt oh so good to mark this off the nursery to do list.

like most projects i'm nervous about, i procrastinate by reading about lots of other people who have done it a lot better than i ever could so there are some great tutorials
{here} or {here} or {here}

i stareted out with ikea's erslev rug that was only about $50, so i figured if i really messed it up, it wouldn't be too horrible.

i made a (really) rough sketch to figure out how many stripes i wanted and ended up going with more stripes. so i divided my 98 inch rug by 11 stripes

and started measuring and marking on the rug. i was really nervous about making these straight, but since there were already lines in the weave on the rug, it ended up being super easy. i quickly quit measuring and just starting counting the little lines (35 for each stripe) and put a pin to mark each stripe

next came the tape which, again, was a lot easier than expected since there were already lines on the rug. i wish i'd used the thicker painters tape and after going over the line twice while painting, i ended up going back to double up the tape which helped a lot.

i used just regular wall paint and added a little water. i read that the rug would soak up paint, but for real - it soaks up the paint. i ended up using almost 2 quarts.

i used a foam roller and it went on pretty well. i tried to avoid going back for a second coat but ended up doing it and really glad i did. the second coat took less that 10 minutes and made it look really even.

side note - i was really nervous about starting this because i'd read that it takes forever but since i did easy stripes, it didn't really take that long at all. i can definitely see how a more detailed pattern would take more time, but it's oh so worth it.

oh. my. goodness. does pulling up the tape give anybody else a heart attack?! make it or break it time

and i loved it. but it looked a little too perfect. a little too painted.

so i broke out the sander and sanded down the paint. it let the grain come through a little more so that it didn't look too painted which i really liked. i was also really nervous that it would be really crunchy feeling when we walk on it, but sanding it down helped this and now i don't really notice much of a difference walking between the painted and unpainted.

yay! i'm so loving it. it's definitely not perfect. (and boo for dark pictures. i'm not a fan of the sun setting at 4:20.) but i think it's a great start for our little nursery!