DIY Mid Century Modern Door Mat

3 Materials
$15
2 Hours
Easy

Living in a mid century inspired home, I sometimes have to be creative to make my own version of classic atomic décor, including this DIY mid century modern door mat.


This project started with a plain coir door mat I purchased from Target.


I let it sit around for more than six months on a table - not the floor - while I tried to figure out how I wanted to paint it and which door it would placed at.


During the sunroom makeover I purchased and downloaded some fun mid century modern atomic svg cut files off of Etsy from AxymonDesigns.


Some of them are classic symbols we all can recognize such as boomerangs and lopsided circles and squares.


My favorite is one for a modern home.


When I saw it I knew I had finally found the image to use for the mid century inspired door mat I wanted to make because it looks similar to my home.

Since I only own a Cricut Joy™, I was unable to cut the modern home image at a bigger size.


So I printed it out as large as I could on cardstock on my printer and then cut out the small details like the doors and windows with an basic X-Acto Knife.



The words and the atomic symbols I cut out on cardstock paper using my Cricut Joy™.


Cutting them out on cardstock allows me to use them like a stencil for the design on the coir mat.


After cutting out the images, I placed them on the coir door mat in different layouts until I found the one I liked.

This was the final design I decided to use!


To create the outline of the design, use a Sharpie marker to trace the outline of the cut images on the coir mat.


I used black because that is what I had on hand but it would have been nice to have markers to match my paint selections.



Tracing the shape of the cutouts is a little tricky on such a rough surface of the coir mat, so I suggest that you pin the pieces down with straight pins first.

Once you have traced the design on the coir mat, then you can just paint in the design with acrylic paints in your choice of colors.


I used bright colors that are popular for mid century designs in green, blue, orange and yellow.

Applying the paint to the coir mat took some time.


You actually have to paint it in a stamping motion like with a stencil brush to get the paint down in the fibers of the coco coir mat.


And it takes several coats of paint.

This type of project takes some patience and time to finish it up but is actually very easy to do. And fun too.

After I painted in the modern house in black and the symbols and words in bright colors, I realized that the house image was a bit too small and out of place in the middle of the mat.

But this was the largest I could print it out at home to use as a stencil so I decided to be a bit more creative and add more to the image in the middle of the mat.


Going back to Google images, (late at night I might add) I looked up images for mid century iconic trees for inspiration.


It was fairly easy to freehand paint in cute and colorful tree shapes along the house image.


At my husband’s suggestion the next morning, I painted in the house door and the garage door in light blue so that it looked even more like our own home.

After a few more coats of paint, the project was done. And I really like how it turned out.

Too bad it is meant to be walked on.

I placed the mat inside the side entrance door in our new mid century modern sunroom.

Resources for this project:
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Donna Powell
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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