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Health and Beauty

Design a floor covering

Add interest to plain flooring with a distinctive rug you paint directly onto the floor

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Add interesting detail to plain flooring with a distinctive rug you have designed yourself. Draw your pattern free-hand onto a piece of canvas or try a ready-made stencil, then use emulsion paint to colour in the design.

How to make

1 Cut a piece of 1cm-thick plywood to the size you wish your rug to be. Centre the wood on a piece of primed no 10 cotton duck canvas, allowing 7-10cm extra canvas on all sides.

2 Make sure that the primed side of the canvas is face down, away from the wood.

3 Fold the canvas around the plywood and staple or tape into place, starting from the middle of each side (the board keeps the canvas taught during painting and drying).

4 Turn the board over and paint the primed canvas surface with a base colour. If you want to give your rug more depth, stipple the paint onto the canvas. When dry, stencil or paint onto the primed and painted surface. Follow with two coats of acrylic matt varnish to seal the canvas.

5 Remove the canvas from the board, fold the excess underneath and fix in place with double-sided or carpet tape.

6 Leave to dry for four days before laying on a non-slip carpet pad or mesh. The rug can be cleaned with a damp cloth and mild detergent.

Linen duck canvas, £59/m, L Cornelissen & Son. Emulsion paint, £23.82/2.5 litres, The Paint Library. Acrylic varnish, £8.50, Homebase. Briar Rose stencil (blown up to 200%), £29.90, The Stencil Library. Carl Larsson half-moon table, £740; Anna chairs, £400 each: both Gustavian. Candlestick lamp base, £98, Nordic Style. Lampshade, £65, The Blue Door. ‘Molly’s Pears,’ framed painting by Elaine Pamphilon, £950, Ainscough Contemporary Art. Hydrangea, from a selection, Paula Pryke at Liberty. Vintage enamel bucket, £14; basket, £29: both Pimpernel & Partners. Red jacket (in basket), £75; children’s canvas baseball boots, £26: both Boden