West Elm Knock Off Rug

Happy Knocktoberfest!!!

Wait, what? You didnt know that normal peeps celebrate Oktoberfest with beer drinking and merry making, and DIYers celebrate Knocktoberfest with freaking awesome projects from brands you covet that you can replicate on the cheap?!

Welcome to an even MERRIER October lovers! Want to dance?! I am feeling the need to pull out Court’s old tuba from his middle school band days. Ok, moment of truth. He actually played the Saxophone…  but the sax just seems a little to sexy. The sexy sax man totally ruined me for life.

Holy tangents. So sorry folks.

First let me start off by saying, I love West Elm. Like if I had a junk ton of money and wasn’t allowed to thrift I would totally shop there all day son.

But life is not that way.

About a month ago I stumbled upon these amazing ethnic rugs from WE.

The sisal one was my favorite, but I loved how imperfect the first one felt. Like it was really handmade. What can I say, imperfect makes me so happy.

The problem is that the one I love is roughly $800. That is unfortunately out of my price range and as much as we would all love to drop $800 on a new rug, sometimes that is just not plausible.

This is the part where we get a little creative.

Find a knobby jute rug for the best price possible. This one from RugsUSA is 65% off right now (which makes it only $60 for a 5×8!). I would always check out your local Homegoods. OR you can always stitch together a few smaller ones if you cant find the size that you need with this tutorial!

And you will have to forgive the lack of real pictures for this tutorial, it was past midnight the day before D day and I was lucky to not have woken up to giant green diamonds on my face the next morning.

(The paint that I used was left over from this project)

Start by taping off the stripes for the edges.

When you are painting on a rug that is so knobby you will have one very very good friend to make the paint line consistent. That friend is water.

Use a medium sized paint brush and paint your lines. Then while your paint is still wet, dip your brush in water and go back over the lines. The water will loosen the paint and make it so that it seeps down into the knots without diluting the color.

Once your stripes are painted mark 5 evenish sections (or as many as you want,  take matters into your own hands if you must.)

Start by making a zigzag down one section. If you want perfect paint lines feel free to tape it off. If you want it full of personality just wing it. Just make sure that you stop a few inches before the tape on one side so that you can make complete diamonds.

 

Then go back and do a second line.

Remove your tape and do another zigzag, but this time zag where you zigged.

Then do another line.

Continue on removing your tape as you go, until your rug is finished.

Then smile every time you see it. Because it is adorbs AND because you saved $700. I feel like we deserve a cupcake dont you?

If you want more deets on the table you can check out the full tutorial on building a pipe table here.

So now that you are feeling a little more inspired, there is a whole myriad of Knocktoberfest projects for you to check out over at Makely.

If you are here from 320 Sycamore you get a big fat high five,  the only bad news is that I am the last stop on the tour today, but first thing tomorrow make sure you check out Ashley from The Handmade Home’s project.