With all this talk about hardwood flooring, I’ve realized that we’ll soon be in the market for a living room rug.

(Don’t even get Wyatt started on the removing carpet to add hardwood but covering it up with a rug concept. He gets pretty heated about it.)

Unfortunately, rugs are VERY expensive. As in, seriously, I could re-carpet my entire house for the price of a rug for one room. Holy cow. So, I’ve been keeping an eye out for local sales and hoping we found one at a good price. Turns out, while scanning Craigslist for something else, I saw this listing:

Score! A nice rug for less than $100 is practically a miracle. So when I found out it was still available and Hubs could go get it that afternoon, I did a little happy dance and told the lady it was sold!

After a little online research, I was pretty sure this rug was an indoor/outdoor rug, which means it isn’t really idea for the living room since it isn’t very soft. It’s not rough or scratchy, but it won’t be squishy under our feet. But, it will prevent the furniture from slipping and sliding and scratching around, and it will help define the living space in a fun, colorful way.

Flash forward a few hours and Hubs called me from the lady’s house to confirm the purchase. Yes, it was an outdoor rug—so it’s not plush at all, but it will work great until we find a better one sometime down the road.

There were also some makeup stains (pink ones–yikes) but we took the leap of faith and bought it anyway, after sweetly asking if she’d take $10 off the price for us having to clean it. Never hurts to ask—she accepted the offer!)

Hubs rolled it up and got it home in Rhonda, tucking her between the seats and out into the truck. Because the rug is thin, this worked. Otherwise, it might not have fit in there.

Then, we unrolled it at home and examined our bargain.

The stains weren’t large, but there were several of them. And yes, they were certainly very pink. She had used this rug near a vanity in her bedroom so I’m guessing these were from blush. Thankfully, they weren’t nail polish.

I got to work with some carpet cleaner and a rag, letting the foaming spray soak in for about a minute before starting to scrub. We only had this car upholstery cleaner, so I crossed my fingers it would be powerful enough for these stains.

In the end, I’m not sure if our carpet cleaner was just really awesome or the rug is really cleanable because it’s indoor/outdoor, but the stains pretty much all disappeared after a few minutes of scrubbing! Score!

For now, this rug is hanging out in the basement, but as soon as we get the flooring delivered (hopefully soon–it has been out of stock), and then get the old stuff out and the new stuff in, we’ll be ready to go!

Of course, we’re still going to look for a softer, thicker rug for the living room, but in the meantime, this will work pretty well. And save us from having to rush to buy a rug at full price.

What’s your stance on the hardwood/carpet/rug debate? Where’s your best suggestion on where to find a great rug at a bargain price? Even cleaned make-up out of carpet with car upholstery cleaner?