Recycled DIY Floor Rug From Left Over Carpet Tiles

Intro: Recycled DIY Floor Rug From Left Over Carpet Tiles

This low budget DIY project is about using new but leftover carpet tiles and transform them into a modern looking colourful rug for your home :).

A lot of stores that sell floor finishings and/or do carpeting projects have a stack of cheap leftover carpet tiles laying around. These leftovers are often a large mix of all sorts and colors so they are not suitable for finishing an entire room anymore. Mostly these never used tiles end up in a dirty garage or shed, they get thrown away or get installed at some place where a super low budget floor finishing is needed and aesthetics is no big deal. In most cases it’s a downgrade of a functional new quality product and that is just a sad thing. Therefore i came up with a simple solution; get rid of the limited pattern possibilities of the standard squares and cut them into different shapes, so the variety of color will become a big plus instead of a problem! :-)

this video is the third of a few tutorials i will make about this idea and hopefully you will be inspired to save some carpet tiles and money for your own :)

IMPORTANT: Think about your safety! Make sure you are good prepared and use good tools before you begin! Cutting the carpet tiles is a job that you must take serious, because it’s a tough and durable material and needs a lot of force to be cut. Only use rulers that have high edges ( to block the knife from leaving its direction and might hurt your hand ). Don’t do this project alone, for safety reasons. Use sharp blades since this will save a lot of your energy. The blades become blunt easily because of the strong backing of the tiles.

STEP 1: Collect Materials & Print the Template

Recipe:

- 6 leftover carpet tiles, for best geometric effect… try to find 3 different, but nice to combine colours. 2 light coloured, 2 dark and 2 bright ones. Also try not to bring Boucle carpet tiles because once they are cut… their edges are very rough and often disturb the pattern lines ( creating ugly gaps ) Frieze carpet tiles work very good! - 1 cutting mat, could be discarded wood or anything actually - 1 stanley knife + new blades - 1 large roll of duct tape or gaffer tape, only use good quality stuff - 1 ruler with a good high cutting edge or use a straight metal profile with high edges and handle bar. In best case, your ruler or profile has hand grips that make it more easy to put pressure on the tile and stay away from the knife. BE CAREFUL! - 1 thin white marker, i used a Posca fine liner. You can also make a light mark with your knife, so you don’t need any marker. - a piece of solid cardboard or anything else that is sturdy and easy to cut - the printed template shape to make the tile contour - glue

print out the template and instruction sheet of the tile contour and measure all lines to be correct. ( to make sure the printer did not warped the shape )

glue the template contour onto the solid cardboard and cut it. ( be precise! )

STEP 2: Cut & Mark & Cut :-)

mark and cut the tiles into long strips like in the video. ( be precise! )

mark and cut the strips according to the tile template contour. ( be precise! )

STEP 3: Repeat With the Other Carpet Tiles

cut all 6 carpet tiles into parts just like you did with the first tile.

STEP 4: Puzzle and Connect the Tiles

puzzle on the floor until you have found the design you like best

use the duct tape to connect all the individual parts.

flip your design over ( carefully ) and add tape strips on all connections to make sure every part is well fixed.

you are ready! :-) time to enjoy your hard work.

Comments

[charlessenf-gm]

Brilliant!
First time I saw it I told my wife "There's a creative person."
Wonder if you could find some way of gluing the bits to a sheet of backing material so as to have a resilient and portable piece - or, why didn't you think of it first, a wall hanging!

[jb235]

Possibly you could use burlap, heavy gauge plastic sheet or thin carpet padding apply adhesive on one of these, then place carpet pieces on the backing.

[JoopB1]

Thank you!! a wall hanger would be super nice as well! but carpet tiles are pretty heavy! Glueing to some sort of backing would be possible too although i don’t have any experience with that :)

[OnionTheAnion]

The design kind of reminds me of the Gamecube logo. Nice project!

[JoopB1]

oops you got me there :P

[marthajheil]

I love the optical illusion. I want to do this with kites and darts for penrose tiling.

[JoopB1]

thanks for your comment! penrose would be stunning also i think! :)

[Handy_Bear]

Love it! Voted for you.

[JoopB1]

thanks a milli!! :)

[heygeno]

Back in the 60's I carpeted EVERYONES bathroom with rad shag carpet pieces picked from carpet dumpsters.... no need to be precise !

[JoopB1]

is that carpet with these long fibers??

[JaiB15]

You just inspired my living room floor. I have an abundance of these tiles. Thank you so much! Who said nothing good comes from late night internet strolls?

[JoopB1]

Haha! i feel honoured to have been able to inspire you during late night internet strolls! :P I personally also enjoy the never ending ‘i need to go to sleep but still i’m roaming the internet’ hours

[MaraCreates]

Love it, not sure if I can find these here in Greece, since they don't really do carpet here :( Last week I tried getting a place to give me their old wallpaper samples, but they wouldn't hahaha.

[JoopB1]

really?! Thats lame of them! :) maybe you could make a carpet also with sheets of felt? :)

[ChristopherJames]

I guess my main concern would have to be the cutting process. One little mistake could lead to the whole setup being messed up since the tiny pieces won't stick together in a smooth shape. I got to practice more!

[JoopB1]

if you cut out a few pieces on paper to see if it works like it should, you are safe. but indeed precision is key in this process

[Jfieldcap]

Looks awesome! I'd worry a little about the durability, but I bet you could do a couple different things to help it last longer. Some sort of edging around the outer edge would help, and maybe if you cut a large piece of backing fabric and sewed the carpet tiles to that it would help.

[booger1027]

I am curious as how well it rates in durability & as well of mods in order to make it more durable.

[JoopB1]

durability is not an issue :) quality of most tiles are very good. Just keep in mind not to buy the boucle type of tiles because these turn out ugly when cut.