Painted Rug

I have been jealous of this front door situation I saw on the Better Homes & Gardens website for awhile now. That in combination with how unhappy I am with our front door porch area pushed me to start to create this look - for much much cheaper than they do in the magazine.

During my spring break a couple weeks ago, I spent some time at my mom's paint store where she happened to have a giant roll of linoleum she uses to paint "floor cloths," or pretty rugs on the back of linoleum. I thought it might be the perfect surface to create a rug like the one above, for a lot less than $600.

I just cut a giant square (5.5x5.5) out of the linoleum and drew my circle off later. 

I tried to pick colors that are already in my color scheme (which also saved me money on paint because I already had leftovers from painting various rooms in my house) but could not decide on the second to last ring. In the picture below you can see I was experimenting with teal, aqua, and brown. I ended up choosing brown because it matched the rest of my house better. So I only had to purchase brown paint and hot pink paint for the outside ring. I was especially ok with buying the pink because I have big plans for the rest of the pint of paint I bought (hint hint it will be another project on the front porch).

I went old school with my circle drawing method - the old string and pencil trick. I just changed the length of the string (which was really a ribbon) for each size circle. It sure isn't perfect, but it is definitely perfect-enough.

We had a bit of a fiasco with the pink paint and in the end painted the very inside circle pink instead of the green it was supposed to be. This resulted in some color order switching, but we stuck with the same colors. Mom was a huge help with the sharp lines between colors. She is a pro at using the "chiseled edge" of her paint brush to make clean lines.

While I had the yellow out I decided to do the tops of these barstools we are currently using (until I can garage sale some with backs this summer). They had blue tops when we got them, I spray painted them all white (you can see in the picture below this one) - and now they are white and yellow. I did not even tape off the edges - just carefully painted on the yellow with a foam brush. 2 coats. Very cute I think!

 Lola was being especially cute during the whole process - the footstool (see how I refinished it here) is her new favorite perch to bark at bikers out the window.

And here is the rug out by my front door:

Notice how the shiny red brings out the dings in the door? I am SO ready to slap some less shiny paint up there. I am also still working on the chairs in the picture below. I love their ice cream shoppe feel - but the color is not fun enough for me yet. If you squint real hard you can see that the chair on the right is silver... I have been experimenting.

Other new spring happenings at the Halls:

These adorable bird sticks (technical term?) are from the dollar aisle at Target.

To finish off the rug and protect it from water/dirt/make it easier to clean - I put one coat of Minwax poly on it.
There is much work to be done in the front door area - but small steps are the name of the game around here. Hopefully a front door re-painting post is coming soon!