With the holidays on their way, you may be thinking about sprucing up your home a bit before company comes, or just to have a warm, fresh look. With everyone pinching pennies these days, home decor might be the last thing on your mind, especially with high food, gas and heating bills. Still, there is plenty you can do on a budget.
A runner rug is a great idea for warming up your floors and even protecting them. These rugs are great in hallways of course, but you can use them pretty much anywhere you have the space. By making the rugs yourself, you can have a custom length and style that suits your home and design. You may chose to use this idea to create an area rug instead of a runner rug.
I estimate that this project will cost anywhere from free to $12, depending on the size of the runner and whether or not you need to buy materials. Even on the high end of the scale, that is a huge bargain for a nice runner rug. With a sewing machine, it should take you less than an hour to create your new piece of home decor.
For materials, you’ll need some small inexpensive rugs. Cotton are easiest to sew. You can find rugs like this at Ikea, mart stores, discount stores and even dollar stores. They cost anywhere from $1 to $3 each (Ikea has them for $2.99).
You are basically going to sew the rugs together using a heavy-gauge thread and a sewing machine. For durability, reinforce the seams on the underside of the rug using 1-1/2-inch wide cotton tape that will then be sewn over each seam. This tape can be found at fabric and craft stores.
If your rug has tassels, remove them from the ends that will be sew together. Then sew the short ends of the rugs together to whatever length you need. An average runner might be three rugs long.
If your original rugs are cotton, you can launder on gentle and air dry the rugs.
Take a look around your house to see if you have any unloved rugs that can be combined for this project. Different colors might make a nice patchwork rug, for example.
Click here for more articles by Mary Ann Romans.
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