chevron fever

This metal box was another thing I rescued from the trash pile at my office. I loved it immediately, but thought it could use a little something extra . . . maybe on the lid. I've been crushing on chevron patterns for a while and even though I made this chevron rug a few months ago, my fever for the zigzags hasn't abated. My design mind is fickle though, so even though I'm loving every zig and zag in sight right now, I realize that in a few months I might be digging something new, so I didn't want to do anything too permanent to this box. So, out came the contact paper again. I printed myself out a zigzag stripe to use as a template, and then used scissors to cut out enough zigzags to cover the lid. Then I just peeled the backing, stuck them on using my template as a spacing guide, and trimmed off the excess after folding each end under the lid. It's so sweet I may even take it home and use it in my kitchen for recipes.

chevron rug

that comes in several colors. But after seeing several DIY versions on pinterest, I decided I could probably do the same. So here's my painted chevron rug:
Painted chevron rugs? Yes, please! I've been wanting one for awhile, there's currently one at urban outfittersI opted for a more subtle zigzag, hoping it would lend itself to the calm feeling of our bedroom. I picked up this little gray-striped tray at IKEA a few weeks ago, and as soon as I plopped the rug down beside the bed, I noticed they are nearly the exact same shade of gray, sweet!

There are plenty of DIY instructions for this rug, (here, here, here, oh and here!) that have great how-to's so I won't write out detailed instructions, but here are a few during shots.

I used this IKEA rug and plain old masking tape instead of painters tape, just because it was what I already had. I also cut out a template to work from because I was intimidated by all the measuring that others mentioned. I just laid the template down and taped underneath it.

The gray paint was some that I had leftover from when I painted the office, it's Glidden's Woodsmoke. I love the color, though it dried much darker then I thought it would on the
fabric rug. I had planned to remove the tape immediately after painting each row, but it went so quickly that I ended up removing it after I had painted all the rows. It took me about 45 minutes to tape out all the zig-zags, and a little over half-an-hour to paint the stripes.

I let it dry for 1 hour before moving it to the bedroom - the paint did not bleed through the rug like I thought it might so I wasn't worried any smidges of paint getting on the floors and I let it dry overnight before walking on it.
Seeing it underneath my feet when I hop out of bed has been making me smile everytime!