Day 8– Reuse and refresh your own things

This post is part of a 31 day series – “31 days to decorate your home on a budget.”  You can read all the posts in this series here.

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To decorate your home on a budget, you are going to have to think outside the box.  Think of ways you can re-use items you already have with just small changes.

I had this rug that I bought at Kohl’s many years ago.  I loved it because it had interchangeable inserts that I could replace or change with the seasons (and the inserts would be about $3 on sale.)  But sadly a year after I bought it they stopped carrying the inserts.     So now I am having to make the ones I have last or bite the bullet and buy a whole new rug.  I had seen quite a few people paint or stencil rugs and thought I bet I can do that with my rug!

I thought it would be fun to do a chevron pattern!   I first painted the rug with some cheap brown spray paint to cover up what was left of the “welcome.”  Then I sprayed it with with a dark red spray paint.  Now was the fun part – taping off my chevron pattern – it took a few minutes but it wasn’t that hard.

After the tape was applied I sprayed the exposed rug with gray spray paint.

And this is what I was left with!

It’s fun and fresh!  

(And it matches my front door!)  Although it is not very fall themed?? Don’t worry, I have another one I can use for fall, but this will be perfect for all throughout the year.

If I had a Cricut or Silhouette machine (hint, hint…can someone reading this tell my hubby Christmas is just 2 months away?  ), I might have attempted to do some sort of stenciled word or object. 

But making something that was eventually headed for the trash…

fun and fresh again!?  That is an accomplishment in my book!

So how about you?  Do you reuse items in your home?  What are some things you have reused or repurposed?

{cj}