In the kitchen at ‘Our House’ I had a rug that went from the sink to the stove, but awkwardly didn’t go the rest of the way to the fridge. So I DIY-ed a new rug, here’s the story, and a quick before and after:
This is the old rug, and it’s a very good quality, durable wool rug. I’ve had it for over 10 years, and lots of spills etc. but they’ve shampooed right out of it, no problem. I am tired of the rust and darker colors though, and the size has always bugged me.
The way the kitchen is designed, it just looked awkward, it looked liked it needed to go the whole way to the fridge.
The problem was the size, standard rug sizes are 3 x 5 or 4 x 6 or a runner is only around 2’ or so by 7 or 8 or 9 feet long… none of them were right for this space, which needed to be 3 ½’ x 7 ½’… I’ve been looking for years, and unless I spent a lot! on a custom sized rug, this size was not to be found.
But the other day I was in Target and it suddenly hit me, why can’t I take a bigger rug and cut it to size, but what about those edges? Well there are tons of rugs out there with the sewn canvas type edges, they must be ok…. So…
This is a perfectly perfect rug, and was discounted almost by a third, nearly $20 off original, just because the original wrap was missing. And being the indoor/outdoor rug that it is, I’m thinking it should clean up from spills pretty well too. And, I love the color and pattern… how perfect can it be?
(Sorry photo is blurry, I’m obviously so excited about the price and perfect-ness I’m shaking.)
Then I went to JoAnn Fabrics Etc. to get some indoor/outdoor fabric. Again, considering the clean-ability factor. The fabric I selected is a heavy canvas type print, with the colors having a small accent of the olive green to coordinate with my cabinets, and the blue I’ve been incorporating throughout the house, the tan is a total match of the tan on the upper walls of the kitchen, plus I like how it is an interpretation of the striped fabric on the Pottery Barn bench I reupholstered (which is in the adjoining living room) but it doesn’t perfectly match it.
After checking that my machine would handle sewing through it before I actually cut into it, and it did just fine, love my Pfaff machine! I measured out the size the rug would be, figured out where the pattern would look best to be centered, and eyed the fabric edge with it. (I had considered stenciling on the rug too, but opted not.)
Then I cut out the size, I also cut away the factory bound edges so that there were no ‘bumps’ in the edging.
I also cut 6” strips of the border fabric, sewed them all together creating one long strip, and pressed in the edges ½” and pressed the whole thing in half to make it easy to sew it on the rug.
The biggest issue I had was the rug was so stiff, it had a mind of its own when I was sewing it, and to try to sew a straight line was nearly impossible. Fortunately, the thread I used blends in well, and unless you get down on your hands and knees, like I did for this photo, you don’t notice it.
Now the rug is the right width of 3 ½’ so the sink can be centered on it.
And the right length to fit in the whole space properly.
I’ve already vacuumed it once and no problem, I’m thrilled with my new DIY custom sized rug!
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