Closet Area Rug | How To Alter a Rug

The master bedroom closet was one of the big selling points for me when we decided to buy our house five years ago.  It has loads of built-in shelving and is longer than our upstairs hallway.  About a year after moving in I installed some basic Rubbermaid closet systems that helped the functionality of the closet and really maximized the space.  It’s not a fancy, gorgeous closet but its size allows us to store all of our clothes and shoes plus laundry baskets, hampers, beach towels, and even extra blankets and comforters when we’re not using them in the warm months.

The big thing that’s been missing is something soft underfoot.  The only significant downside to the closet is that there are no heating vents, so on a chilly winter morning it can get pretty cold in there.  Add a bare, icy floor on your feet and brrrrrr!

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a closet rug and it was also a tricky size given its narrow entry that opens up into a larger space.  On my most recent trip to Lowe’s there was a bin of cotton rugs rolled up in the front of the store that were on clearance for…wait for it…$18.99.  For a rug.  I couldn’t believe it.  I loved the pattern regardless of the price and so put two in my cart thinking I could do some work on one of them to convert it to a runner for the entry of the closet.

The rugs are a thick cotton mat style, very soft and cushy underfoot but still thin enough to cut with scissors and run through my sewing machine.  I measured the width of the closet entry and cut the edges of the rug to be just a bit narrower.

Then I used the over-edge stitch on my sewing machine to hold the edges together and prevent fraying.  I thought about buying some kind of binding and attaching that to the edges for a more polished look but I wound up liking the casual look of the sewn edges.  It’s a casual rug and the stitching fit.

Isn’t the pattern so great?