Before there were cheap carpets, broadloom wall to wall or linoleum, there were rag rugs and oilcloth to cover the floors of those wealthy enough to afford the leisure to make them or buy them, but not rich enough to afford true carpets. With the invention of linoleum in the late 19th century, painted floor cloths pretty much disappeared until an interest in history and historical authenticity in decorating brought them back. In the Colonies and early United States, they were usually sails that were too worn to be used on ships, and were often cut down, coated in oil based paints (i.e. the name oil cloth) and pegged into the pounded earth floors. In England at the same time, they were usually used anywhere food was served because they could be folded or rolled up and taken outside and shaken to rid them of crumbs and scraps.
I got interested in these because A) I'm a history buff and have recently fallen in love with both the Regency and the Federalist period, B) we have no carpet and cold floors and two cats who complain bitterly about the chilly floors, and c) I had a bolt of canvas I bought for $1 a yard several years ago that I've been carting around, thinking I might build a pavilion, but it's too heavy for my sewing machine. So being a thrifty sort, I decided that instead of buying area rugs - an expensive proposition - I'd use my set building skills to make something useful.
My first task was to cut the canvas and lay it flat to get rid of the center seam. I cut the 14 or so yards I had of the stuff into 6 and 7 foot chunks, depending on the room for which they were intended. I also had enough left over to make a couple of door cloths. It's 60 inches wide, so the cloths are either 5x6 or 5x7. ( or 2x3 in the case of the door cloths.)
Second was to edge them. After some experimentation, I found that the very best, most durable edging I could do was not to sew (by hand, machine not being happy with me) or glue or hot glue a hem in, but to run gaffer's tape (a heavy, sticky tape similar to duct tape, but matte in appearance and in multiple colors) along the edges, then run a hot iron briefly over the edging. This also eliminated the need to miter the heavy corners. I don't have pictures of this at this point, but I can get some shots if you're interested.
Third was priming. I ended up hitting the mistints bins at the hardware store and Lowe's because the canvas, olive drab initially, soaked up regular primer and latex paint like a sponge, so there was no point in spending $20 a gallon for basic primer when I could spend $4 a gallon for someone's unhappy experiment in the cream tones. I put three or four layers of a priming paint over the olive drab canvas. Painting also gave me a very uniform surface for the final design and helped minimize that middle fold. However, the only way to entirely get rid of the fold entirely is to let the primed cloth lay flat for a few weeks. Most people don't have that luxury of space. Rolling helps, but I can live with the fact that I'll have a fold for a few weeks until gravity does the job.
Fourth was the design. The hard part! The one for my living room is going into a rather Comfy Eclectic room - torchieres, stuffed chairs slipcovered in either cream chenille or a tan and rose brocade, a futon couch, marble topped end tables, a fireplace with a black marble tile surround, and the luggage labeled coffee tables (assuming I can ever get the paint to go on properly.) Thus, I needed something that would not compete, but still be comfortable in its own right.
I went through several iterations, but eventually settled on a black border with a leafy stencil overlay, and a lattice over cream center. I ended up doubling the stencil because the red acrylic I chose for the border didn't show up well on the black until I used a white or pinkish underlayment.
I ended up doing the stencil at a slight offset on the second coat to give it a bit of a shadow effect.
I used a mix of acrylic paints (from the hobby store) and various quarts of latex mistints I've bought for the design colors. The black and the cream are latex; the other colors are acrylic).
The flowers in the center are hand drawn; I've looked at a lot of Regency watercolor books (i.e. what girls got instead of an education) and these are similar to what young ladies were taught to draw for the sake of being accomplished.
Once I had the design finished, I coated it with three coats of satin, water based polyurethane. If it was summer, I'd use oil based, since it lasts longer and is less likely to color-shift, but being winter and not having ventilation enough for me to feel comfortable with fumes, I went with waterbased. I'll probably have to recoat it with a single coat of poly every year or so, depending on how much foot traffic it gets.
Once finished, it dust-mops clean for daily cleaning, and a damp mop takes up the dirt. To keep it flat to the floor, I glued squares of thin, rubber matting on the corners. Between that and the furniture, it stays in place.
Edit: My apologies on the blur in the first two pictures. The camera and I are having an argument about what setting it is supposed to stay at, and since the manual is not being helpful, I'm having no luck getting it to autofocus at near, but not macro objects.
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