Finishing Edges of a Rug Remnant

If you buy a rug remnant, you can sometimes get a large rug for very little money. The downside is that the edges usually aren't finished. This was the case for our new big living room rug. Instead of having someone else finish the edges, I decided to give it a go. I started by exposing all of the edges since I we had been using the rug with the unfinished edges for a couple of weeks.

Then I trimmed off all the little fuzzies so I had a clean edge.

I decided to use iron on rug binding. I used this product if you are looking for something similar. For our size rug (10.5' x 12') I needed four packages. I found it easiest to fold the binding in half while the paper was still on and then peep off the paper. This creased the binding enough so that it was easier to make sure I had the correct amount of binding on each side of the rug.

I then went around with the iron and added heat to binding with the rug pinched in the middle. I found it was easiest and fastest to do the underside first and then the top second. I just added enough heat for it to stick but in some places that wasn't enough and I had to go back and add more heat. Here's a close up of the unfinished next to the finished edge.

Overall, I'm happy with the look since it is a huge improvement over the unfinished edge. The durability of the iron on edging would be fine if we didn't have an 8 month old constantly trying to peel it off. Unfortunately, we do so there have been a few times when he's been able to separate the edging from the rug so I have to get the iron back out and reattach. Hopefully he'll either lose interest soon or his fingers will get too big to affectively get under the edge. Until then, we'll keep the iron handy.

Linking To: Hi Sugar Plum, The Great Indoors, House of Hepworths, My Repurposed Life, Our Delightful Home, Five Days Five Ways, Serenity Now, Lovely Etc., The Rooster and the Hen, Six Sisters Stuff, Tatertots and Jello, Wayward Girls Crafts, Twigg Studio, Serendipity and Spice, Ask Anna, Home Stories A to Z, Uncommon Designs, House wives of Riverton, Crafty Texas Girls, Southern Institute, Watch out Martha!, http://www.myrepurposedlife.com http://www.lizmarieblog.com/ http://missmustardseed.com/