I used to have beautiful rugs.

Did I mention I have 5 kids, 2 cats and a dog?

When I moved into our current home (AKA “the Money Pit”), I bought a gorgeous sisal rug. Within 5 days, one of my children vomited on the rug. Hello stain, goodbye rug.

Enter floor cloths. I Pinterest hunted for tutorials but couldn’t find the right one. So I came up with my own. Unlike cloth, I used linoleum as my base as it is heavy. It does not need to be anchored using rug tape and does not curl up on the edges.Did I mention it’s also extremely  durable?

It’s pretty easy and very economical. This is my “rug” after 9 months of hard use. I clean it with a mop and bucket.

You will need:

• linoleum ( I use the cheapest, ugliest linoleum at Lowe’s the local big box store). For this project, it needs to completely flat, not embossed or grooved unless that is part of your design element. You can cut it in any size or shape you wish.
• Stix primer. This will eliminate the need to sand your linoleum.

• Flat napped roller and paintbrushes of your choice
• Paint. I find latex works best and I use the type used for walls. Just like walls, the higher quality paint leads to fewer coats which is essential if you plan to stencil. I like to use craft paint such as Martha Stewart, Plaid or Tulip paints for fine details.
• Non Yellowing polyurethane (water based) like Varathane
• Brush cleaner, paint tray, painters tape, tack cloth.
• Stencils if you wish to use them for your design. I especially like the stencils from Cutting Edge Stencils

Steps

1. Wash your linoleum with the floor cleaner of your choice and let air dry. Note:  Finding a relatively kid free place to work is key. You want your masterpiece to dry where it won’t be stepped on.
2. Cover the entire piece of linoleum with Stix. Make sure it is well coated and is opaque so the original linoleum color is NOT showing through.
3. Add your base coat design if using a stencil. Steps two and three are the easiest because you can just use a roller. Again, let air dry.
4. Then I begin to tape off borders if I am using them and use my stencils. I do not use stencil adhesive spray, I prefer to hold the stencils in place or I use painters tape to hold the stencil firm.
5. When dry, add additional colors to your design, making sure to let each coat dry thoroughly between colors.
6. Touch ups as needed. When everything is bone dry and correct (this may take several days), I use  tack cloths to clean my linoleum before sealing with two coats of poly. I have also found that if there are mistakes after I’ve sealed, I gently paint over the error with a little brush and then reapply poly with a foam tip brush.

You are done! You have a new floor cloth!

Here is the price breakdown for my rug above:

linoleum: $45, paint base coat free (leftover from another project), 1 quart Benjamin Moore paint $20, Stix  $20, Poly free (leftover from another project). My rug is 9 x 12 and was $85.00

Here are some images of a gift floor cloth for my son’s teacher so you can see my stencil steps. Have fun. it can be very addictive. Soon you will find all kinds of uses for floorcloths!