Trashtastic Tuesday – How I Painted a Sisal Rug

Welcome to Trashtastic Tuesday!  This is a little series that I have at Sweet Parrish Place where I take something that I already own, that is old or thrifted, and try to give it a new life.  I try to add a new project a couple of times a month, but from time to time, depending on what is going on in our lives, I may slack off.  The project I have to share with you today is one of my favorite ones yet, and I am so excited about it.  I have been wanting to try my hand at painting a rug for quite some time, and I finally did it!  Here it is in my entry.

We still need to paint the stair risers, the trim going up the stairs and the spindles.

I have talked several times about how faded my landing is from the sun shining in this spot over the years.  And this picture really shows that.  I have plans to sand this entire space down and do a decorative paint treatment.  It will be amazing when I have it all finished.

This sisal rug I have owned for many years, and it was stained from our dog urinating on it so many times.  I know, totally gross.  We had sprayed it down with a hose and let it dry out, but the stains remained.  So I decided this was the perfect rug to try a painting project on.

I have never mentioned on the blog before that our dog, Bambi, passed last spring.  I meant to write a whole post about it, but it just never ended up happening.  It was sad for all of us.  And we are hoping to get a new dog sometime during the next year.

I do want to point out that you can still see the staining, at certain angles, on the stripes I left natural.  This is an example.  But at some angles, you don’t notice it at all.  So I think I am going to dry brush the natural parts with a color that matches this natural sisal to try to hide that.  I’ll show it to you if I do.

The side of the rug that I painted is actually the back of the rug.  That is because there is a pattern on the front.  This is a picture of the front of the rug.  Staining and all.  I also have a long runner that matches this rug up in the attic.  I am saving it for a rainy day.  It is not stained. I actually got rid of my old rug that was here because the colors just weren’t jiving, and replaced it with this stained one knowing that I wanted to paint it.  I figured if I put the ugly out for all to see, I would be more inspired to get er done!