I am really excited to show you this post today, but not for the obvious reasons! Yes, the colour is lovely and it looks really cool, but it took me 7 tries to figure out how to make the paint stick!
You see, most paints that stick to a cut-pile carpet also changes the texture of the carpet, it makes it hard. And if you get a paint that is quite happy to be absorbed by the carpet, then you can also scrub it out*
I tried thinning the paint, spraying the carpet with water first, using thinners, even ironing it to fix the paint. But to no avail. In the end, I got the idea to use bonding liquid – the type that you use to get paint to stick to cement. And to my surprise – it worked! The paint stuck through various scrubbing test and after the horrid smell left, it works really well! I used Chalk Paint ® decorative paint by Annie Sloan in Florence for my carpet (which was synthetic cut-pile).
Shop your chalk paint online here!
A few tips:
- I mixed the paint to bonding liquid to thinners 2:1:1. The thinners is essential to help with spread,
- bonding liquid bonds very quickly, so don’t hesitate: after you’ve mixed the paint with it, THROW! Otherwise it starts to go thick and makes a hard crust on the carpet instead of going into the fibers.
- Let it dry outside and leave it there for a few days if you can. It really has a very strong chemical smell, but it does go out eventually.
- If you’re quick enough, the carpet will remain soft without any bonding liqued clots.
- If you end up getting thicker bits, just wait for it to dry completely and then use a hard brush to brush it out. It will only remove the clots and leave the rest of the paint.
*Any mom who’s ever tried to remove paint from a carpet will say that you can’t scrub it out completely and that’s true. But I didn’t want to be able to scrub it out even a little bit!
Happy painting!
