The UnWelcome Mat

Just in time for Halloween... If you are not in the mood to answer the call of trick or treaters or poll takers, put your UnWelcome mat out by the door. Better than hanging a "Do Not Disturb" sign up on the doorknob and this works all year round too.

Custom make your own with any fitting inscription that will fit. Perhaps our friends across the pond will be making their own "Sod Off" mats soon.

Step 1: In a Bind...

I had some carpet remnants left over from when I attempted to re-carpet the bedrooms. Yeah, lesson learned is let the pros do the install next time to save yourself from using the knee-kicker installation tool. This is interior carpet but use exterior grade carpet if you are making a doormat for outside use or where it will be exposed to the elements.

Anyway, cut a piece of carpet that is about 18x27 inches to make the doormat. You can scale this up to any size rug or mat you need.

The next step is to bind the edges to keep all the threads and backing grid from unraveling through wear and tear.

Most of the finished rugs you buy are bound at the factory with a sewn edge, fabric wrapped edge, or a serged/thread wrapped edge.

You can give your freshly cut piece of carpet scrap the same luxury detail.

Trim all the edges so they are pretty straight, just cut along the back following the backing grid that is there.

Use duct tape on the back to line the edges with about 1/4 inch of the sticky tape exposed on top/front.

Use fancy cord or rope for your finished border edge. I only had paracord to use but try to get something thicker to have a better look on the finished product. Melt the ends of any polyester cord to keep it from unraveling. Match the colors if you need this as a decorator accent piece.

Push the cord up to border the carpet edge and press in place on the tape strip.

When the cord is cut to length and secured in place, run a bead of hot glue between the cord and the carpet base. Bend the seam back to open up the gap. You want to make everything one piece. You can also probably run a bead of E6000 glue and let that dry overnight if you don't want to burn yourself patting the cord back in place before the hot glue cools down. After the glue is set, go around and trim off the excess tape.

Step 2: Make Your Mark...

We are just going to go with a quick stencil to embellish the rug.

I did a freehand sketch of what I wanted but you can go all out and design something on the computer to output to a stencil cutter. Hmmm, I don't know if lasercutters engrave onto carpet.

My stencil is a piece of thin cardboard. I put packaging tape all over it to make it sturdier and more water resistant to the acrylic paint I would be using.

Use a utility knife to cut out your design. If you look close, those loose freestanding parts of the letter A and O are held in place by taping pieces of dental floss to them. This makes the stencil one piece and those errant parts will always be aligned.

Tape the stencil in place in position on the carpet. Mask off any other areas to prevent paint from accidentally getting on it.

When stenciling, just keep daubing and do not brush the paint so that you get good crisp edges.

I used an acrylic paint but it is probably best to use a solvent based paint to stick to the synthetic fibers better. Spray enamels would work but they harden up when dry and wouldn't feel good on bare feet. I was going to use my can of rubberized flex seal spray but it was too windy outside to paint.

Make your own custom inscribed doormat for any occasion.

Enjoy!