During the summer, I love having friends over to my house to hang out in the backyard.
As a result, I am always on the lookout for DIY projects to spruce up my yard, like this really cool fire pit bench. I enjoy being creative when making home improvements, so when I saw this amazing DIY project to transform my back patio, I decided I'd have to give it a shot.
I found this brilliant idea on A Beautiful Mess, where Laura Gummerman makes an outdoor "rug" to turn her boring cement patio into a colorful backyard hangout. Using only some cleaner, primer, paint, brushes, tape, and stencils, Laura created a beautiful patio rug out of paint. Such a clever idea!
This easy and inexpensive project will help me to transform my patio into the perfect spot to entertain my friends all summer long. I can't wait to get creative with the design!
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Laura writes, "I wanted to try a painted rug on our concrete porch this year. I mean, what's better than a rug where you can pick the pattern and colors yourself?" She started her process off by cleaning the patio thoroughly.
Laura taped out her rug area using painter's tape. She writes, "The tape won't fully stick to the concrete, but it will still help to give you a visual guide as you work."
She used primer on the space she planned to paint. While the primer dried, she got to work on the creative part of the project!
Laura used a combination of calculation and imagination to make a stencil for the rug design. "I like to make mock-ups of patterns first so I can plan out my color placement and size, but you can also just make a quick sketch with markers or pencils, too, if that helps."
Laura first applied a full coat of a light-colored paint. "You may want to paint the bottom color white for your first coat as a primer so your colors look bright and true when painted on top."
Once the paint was dry, she traced her stencil onto the floor. "I would highly suggest doing a simpler pattern if you aren't a really patient personality – stripes, dots, color blocked patterns are all really cute options that would be way easier to plan out."
Laura then filled in her shapes with other bright colors of paint. Since she did her primer color in light blue, she had to paint a layer of white in her shapes in order to get a truer top color.
While her paint dried, Laura was able to kick back and relax with a glass of lemonade. "You can check and see if a topcoat sealer is needed, but you most likely won't need one for most porch paints."
And Laura's DIY outdoor "rug" was all finished! "I would say that I'm happy with my finished rug, but that would be a lie. I'm not happy; I'm thrilled!"
"This is totally a project that I plan to redo each summer to give our space a fresh face each year. I'm so happy that I can create whatever I want now and completely customize the look." Laura's rug transformed her patio into a beautiful summertime hango
Please SHARE if you think that simple DIY projects like this one are a great idea.
