Sometimes I get the ‘creative’ bug. It hits out of nowhere! Without warning, I feel the need to change something in my humble home with some creativeness. Therefore, a few weekends ago, when the creative bug hit me, I wasn’t too surprised that it was the dog dish rug that I suddenly couldn’t stand for one more day. All I could think about was the giant roll of rope I had hidden in my closet for a ‘someday project.’ It seemed to me that a DIY Rope Rug was in the making. The project took less than a house and the space was transformed into a more rustic and enjoyable area.
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A Rustic DIY Rope Rug
I have a confession to make, the entire reason I wanted a new rug under the dog bowls was that I wanted to rug even with the end of the cabinet. Spoiler alert: I forgot to take into consideration the tassel length at the end, and the rug still hangs over the edge. But I still maintain that his rustic DIY rug meets the mark or providing a little beauty upgrade!
The rustic look of rope is what attracted me to this idea. We are still in the process of doing little remodel projects to our kitchen to make it more ‘ours.’ But the overall result currently is decidedly more rustic and unrefined. I love the cast iron door knobs and shiplap backsplash. Our DIY Pantry Door with this doorknob has been one of my favorites ever DIY endeavors. Any projects moving forward, I’d like to match the rustic nature of the evolution of this kitchen.
DIY Rectangle Rope Rug
I chose to make a rectangle rope rug. However, there are so many different dimensions and shapes that you can use with this same process! I’m truly in love with this DIY creation, and I plan on making some square rope rugs, and circle rope rugs.
The Materials for the Rope Rug
- Rope
- Backing or old rug
- Hot Glue – Gorilla Glue Preferred for tough material like this.
- Utility Knife
- Tape Measure
The Rug Process
Obviously, we need a bit of rope. For the result that I completed, the rug was 12×24 inches, with the tassels. One of the wonderful things about doing a DIY rug is that you can customize it to fit whatever size you are looking for. In this case, I used roughly 728 inches of rope for this project, or 60 feet. I cut 26 pieces of 28-inch rope glue together.
The easiest way to make a square or rectangle DIY rope rug is to use a backing or old rug to glue the rope to. Personally, I found that the old rug worked the best, it was easy to cut with a utility knife. I wasn’t worried about ruining something that I had just purchased.
A functioning kitchen rug needs to hold together, so I took some time to ponder my adhesive. Gorilla hot glue is one of my favorite adhesives out there. Although I was skeptical at first, this rug has taken a beating from our loving pup and is still holding strong. Ample amounts of hot glue is best to hold each piece securely to the rug backing.
Once the glue is drying and firmly secured, you can start to unravel the tassels at each end. This was certainly my favorite part because you start to see the DIY rope rug take shape!
Continue with each piece until your rug is filled out!
How Much Rope do I need to Make a Rug?
The amount of rope you need for a DIY rug is completely up to you!
I did not measure my rope prior to starting my initial rug project on purpose. This was on purpose to see how much I would naturally use. That number really depends on how big of a rug you want to make.
The old rug I used as backing, was a very typical 17×24 inches, but I cut down the edges to get the backing down to 12×22 inches. With the tassels, the end result was 12×24 inches. I picked those dimensions to fit the specific space that I was trying to fill. As a result, I used roughly 60 feet of rope.
I would assume that for a normal 17×24 inches rug, I would need about 30-40 more feet of rug.
Don’t let those numbers scare you, most of the packages of rope I purchase start at 100ft of rope. This one is excellently priced and has free shipping.
You can use those calculations to assume how much rope you would need for your project.
DIY Kitchen Rugs
I’m absolutely loving the look that this rug offers to my rustic kitchen. Should I do all my rugs in this same manner? We’ve been wanting to update them for a while now. However, we just have not found something we like. This process would look wonderful with this white rope, or this pipping cord . Do you have any cord or rope you think would work well?
