West Elm Knock-Off Rug

I was set on a black & white rug to set down in the kids’ bathroom.  Black & white screams “gender neutral” to me and since I needed all of that I could get in this little bathroom for two girls and a boy, that’s the direction I was headed.

Enter this little thing:
Not black and white (even though it could argue the gender neutral case pretty well) but a great path to getting there since the other side was a blank slate.  You probably read the post about this rug and how I sewed, cut, and frayed the edges to get fringe. 

Now enter the Torres Kilim from West Elm…aka, my inspiration.
I saw it first on an episode of Fixer Upper and knew it would be super easy to imitate since the lines are perfectly imperfect.  Rug.  Kids’ bathroom.  Now.

Fringe a Rug - How To

So, as you know, we’ve been slowly plugging away at the kids’ bathroom (see the mood board here).  It’s amazing how slowly really.  We actually made ourselves a deadline of last weekend to finish this baby but then we got thrown for a scary loop when we had to make an ER visit resulting in a hospital admittance for Seraphia that pretty much ate up our entire weekend…not to make it sound like it was an inconvenience because of course we’d rather coddle a sick child than work any day but also of course we’d rather have healthy children and do fun things like diy.

Praise be to God she’s ok and on the mend – she had some breathing issues and as it turns out, allergy-induced asthma maybe on top of a virus.  It was one of those scary moments in parenthood where you have no clue what’s happening to your baby girl and why she can’t breathe and your mind scans a thousand of the worst options.  Love makes your heart bubble up and over and it also makes of you a hyperventilating worrier, I suppose. 

But anyway, like I said, thank God we are past that and all is well here.  Let’s move onto greener, more superfical pastures, shall we? 

Like our kids’ bathroom:This is where we left off after hanging some colorful art and letter hooks on the wall to the right and out of the frame of the above shot.

Since then, we’ve ripped out that half-wall and those nice 80’s spindles, getting us to here:

I know you appreciate my skillful styling courtesy of la tools.

The wood mirror is an option we’re toying with since Anthony accidentally broke the existing mirror (bottom center has a big ‘ole crack).  It’s actually the mirror off one of our dressers, which you probably gathered, and would be a free replacement.  Our best friends, Dan and Lauren, used a dresser mirror in one of their bathrooms and it looked so cool so we’re just following their lead.  :)

Let’s talk about what’s gracing the floor - that blue and green-striped rug.  It’s a Target runner I paid $10 for at Dirt Cheap a few years back and I actually bought it because I intended to make it our entry rug until I found this one instead.

I got it because it has this striped pattern on one side:

and is plain white on the other, making that side a perfect canvas for a paint job.  :)

So this rug has been sitting under the vanity in the kids’ bathroom for forever now, waiting for me to paint it and place it under their toes.  Well, I still haven’t gotten around to painting it but I did add a little something by way of fringe to the edges and so down it went.

It was pretty simple to do.  First, I figured out how big I wanted the rug to be (minus the fringe) and sewed a straight line across on both sides, where I wanted the rug to ‘end’.
  Yes, I sewed the rug.  I didn’t know if it would work or not at the first press of the foot pedal but it actually went pretty smoothly.  I used the black thread that was already residing on my machine and you can barely tell it’s there.  See? 

After I had my two lines sewn, I cut off the ends of the rug where I wanted the ends of the fringe to start…

…and then I just started pulling the rug apart.  I frayed it.  #hencethetitle

The large threads came off in one piece and they were pretty darn cool.  I saved them.  :)

So the fringe is pretty thin and wimpy as far as fringe goes but it’s still fringe and I kinda like it.(PS, behold the new tile floors!  They’re nothing special but they only cost us about $15 in tile so, huzzah!  Anthony laid them.  He’s kinda amazing.  <3)

Now I just need to figure out what to paint on the other side of that rug.

At first, I was going to go for this design:(rug via trouva.com)
But then I thought maybe I’d grab the stencil I used on our screened-in patio floor and do that all over again but in mustard yellow? 

And then I saw this West Elm rug on Fixer Upper and kinda loved it:

Or maybe the same rug except mustard yellow instead of black?  I don’t know.  What do you think?  The shower curtain (shown all the way above) is black and white striped so I don’t want it to compete too much with that though I think a little healthy competition and pattern playing is good.  Decisions, decisions…

Either way, the bathroom is coming along.  From the first picture up at the top of this post, it would seem like we’re moving backwards as far as decor goes…
 
But then you think back to where we started and it looks like we’ve made leaps and bounds, tool decor and all.

This weekend we’re going to work on touching up the paint, putting baseboards back on, and the mirror.  We also want to either thrift or make a new light fixture and have plans to diy some concrete countertops.  Phew, we better get a move on.

Stay.

Tuned.

Per the usual.

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