My painted rug

Im so excited about this project. One of my favorite design blogs, almost 40 year old intern, did a really awesome painted rug back in September that I shared when looking for a new living room rug this fall.  Well I never did find a new rug for the living room but I was inspired to try my own painted rug and followed the tutorial to a T.  Here are my steps with some helpful tips:

4X6 Ikea Erslev Rug (still available at the Stoughton Ikea but not online)
Green Frog Tape (so much stickier than the blue)

First I taped off a rectangle, then figured out my measurements. I went for fewer large squares than were done in the almost 40 blog.  It helps to have someone help you get these guiding lines down so they are straight.

 Adding the middle lines

Removing the tape 

At this point hubs said, lets just keep it like this....and I agree that the green trellis looks good.  We kept it for a week while I waited for the fabric medium to come in.  I used 4 containers of the liquitex fabric medium in all and mixed them with 2 pints of paint (poured from a gallon as it was cheaper).  The paint I used is Valspar's Red Tomato and after 1 coat it looked a little streaky.  So I reluctantly painted a second coat, which actually turned out great.  It may be slightly stiffer than a one coat job but looks really good.  I did have some bleeding, which could have come from the second coat or the fact that I taped a week in advance.  Either way its barely noticeable.

The rug is down in our grey room, which was once the office but now transforming into....the nursery!  I'm due in July and baby W will be a surprise so I think the red is a perfect foundation for what I hope will be a bright and modern room.   

I loved this project so much that I've already picked up a second rug for my kitchen!  My mom thinks I should start selling these but I'm not sure about that at 4 months pregnant...