Introduction: Recycled DIY Floor Rug From Left Over Carpet Tiles

About: Maker guy with a lot of love for paper and cardboard. Recently also working with recycled plastics. other related interests are photography, youtube, recycling, etc :-)

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.

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