An old rug gets a new life

I posted awhile back about a green outdoor rug I got for free on Craigslist. It had definitely seen better days, but I thought I might be able to save it. Here it is after I picked it up:


I have to admit, when I was laying it out I began to wonder if I was going crazy for wanting something so old and dirty. Needless to say I drug out the pressure washer and got to work. A lot of cleaning and a bit of paint later and..... Ta Da!


Here's the breakdown on how I did it:

1) A TON of pressure washing. This took a good 2 hours, but at least it came out squeaky clean!


2) You may have seen Curbly's tutorial for painting an indoor/outdoor rug floating around on the internet. I liked the idea so much I decided to follow it and it worked out perfectly. My only addition was that for this type of rug (it seemed to be made of woven plastic) I had to use a primer because it sucked all the paint right into it.

Also, I made the silly mistake of using gray primer because I ran out of white and was too lazy to drive back to the store. Don't do this! Use a primer that is close to your actual paint color, otherwise you will be fighting with it all day. Here's the rug all taped off with blue painter's tape.



Painted! I let it dry for a few hours before removing the tape, and then let it cure for a few days before moving it.

All done!