Painted Outdoor Rug Tragedy

Lesson learned…before painting an outdoor rug and leaving it outside overnight to dry, check the weather forecast!!

I finished painting my outdoor rug Monday night.  The last stripes I painted were the small red and white stripes.  Because they were thin stripes, I didn’t have much room for “massaging” the paint into the fibers with the scrubby brush, so instead I had to just load up my paint brush with extra paint to get it down into the fibers.  That meant that the white and red stripes had considerably more paint on them than the thicker green and blue stripes.

Not a problem, right?  The blue and green stripes were dry, and I had sealed them with the clear spray.  So the plan was to leave the rug outside all night, let the white and red stripes dry completely, and then spray them with the clear spray in the morning.  It was a perfect plan, until I went out yesterday morning and realized it had been raining!!  And it continued to rain most of yesterday morning.

My heart sank.  After all those hours of work, and then my rug with the still-wet paint got rained on.  Uugghhh.

The rain finally went away yesterday afternoon, but with everything still soggy it was difficult to survey the damage.  So I went out this morning to see if I could tell if my rug was salvageable.

All in all, I do think it made it through okay.  The blue and green stripes…the ones that were dry and had been sealed…looked just fine.  But the white and red stripes…the ones that were loaded with extra paint and were far from dry…didn’t make it through quite so well.  Right off, I noticed that the red had bled onto other areas of the rug…

In fact, most of the unpainted areas of the rug that were still the original taupe color now had a pinkish tint to them.  Bummer.

I guess overall, the rug still looks pretty good and is definitely salvageable, though it will have to dry out completely, and I’ll have to go back over some of those stripes with fresh paint…

But I’ve also got quite a bit of cleaning up to do…

Yeah.  Sad.  What a bummer.

So, learn from my oversight.  If you take on the painted outdoor rug project (which I still like, and would still recommend if you want a great looking rug at a very low cost), then either bring the rug into a covered area until it dries completely, or just check the weather forecast!!  If rain is imminent, move on to another project until the sky clears.

 

 

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10 Comments

  1. Oh no, I can just imagine that heartbreaking sinking feeling you must have felt. I have to say though, it still looks awesome! You probably have to get up pretty close to see any of the smears.

  2. oh dear!! 🙁 so sad! After all your hard work! it still looks great, and I hope you can still use it and enjoy it. Great project, and I appreciate all the tips on your initial post 🙂

  3. It still looks good, and it IS an outdoor rug, so it’s not supposed to stay perfect. Sure, would have been nice to get to use it while it was still perfect, but now you have a little story to smile about when you sit on the patio and gaze at all your work. Chin up!

  4. What a bummer! But I have to say it still looks awesome and hopefully you’ll be able to salvage it. I wonder if you could use an old toothbrush to push the paint into the smaller stripes???

    A big thanks for sharing — I’m getting ready to make one of these for my daughter and I soooo appreciate what appears to be some pretty significant tips.

    1. Susan, I hadn’t even thought of using a toothbrush! What a fantastic idea! My goodness, if I had thought of that, it might have saved me this headache because I wouldn’t have had to use as much paint, and the paint would have dried faster…possibly before the rain came! lol…Oh well. A lesson learned, indeed.

  5. Oh Kristi – what a bummer. So sorry to see that happen.. tough even though a little messed up.. it still looks beautiful 🙂

  6. How disheartening to wake to rain. I love the colors and how everything is coming together. I’m sure you’re not looking forward to having to touch it up. But, I have not doubt that it will be terrific. It looks wonderful on my screen!

  7. I loved your subject line of tragedy. Aft all the work you put in, I imagine that was the first expression that came to mind. Very inspiring post on making the rug. Before I buy anything now, I think “What would Kristi do?”

  8. What a great idea! I know what you mean about the rain. Here in Minnesota we have thunderstorms that roll through and I have to do my outside stuff between the storms 🙂
    Hugs,
    Bj