Spray Painting The Carpet

Finally stopped fretting over painting the carpet. I figured the worse that happens is I rip out more carpet. When I removed the old carpet from the van my primary reason was that is just smelled bad. My secondary reason was pure function.

Cats + Litter + Carpet = Vacuum

No thank you. Being able to sweep is a much better option. That being said - to get in and out of the litter pan the cats have to walk on a small bit of carpet to minimize how much tracking happens. There are few things worse than having litter stuck to your feet ALL THE TIME. It gets everywhere - the bed being the worst.

Yesterday afternoon I bit the bullet and spray painted the carpet with black Simply Spray. I was concerned about using the black. I really don't want the inside of the van to be overly dark. I taped off the wood and started spraying. With carpet you need to have a glove on so you can work the dye down into the fibers but I noticed if I didn't soak it all the way through I was getting a really neat chocolaty color with red and gold undertones from where the carpet had faded. I'll take it. It turned out better than I hopped so I used the rest of the can to do the carpeting I left around the toilet, Once the sun comes out today I'll be doing the rest of that carpet and debating on whether to do some of the cushions or not. I may do the dinette seats and leave the backs maroon. I'm so happy the dye didn't come out jet black - that was one of my biggest concerns. It also makes me think I can turn the inside to purple fairly easily if I decide to go that route. Doing that on the road will require a three to four day stay somewhere because  the cats and mouse would have to come out of the van. The fumes from the spray are noxious. I was blowing black dye out of my nose for hours after using the stuff.

Also when the sun comes out I need to set out the vinyl to soften it so I can cut it down and hopefully finish installing it. The past few overcast days have me in a bit of a funk.

I'll see about getting pictures of the newly colored carpet at some point today.