I love how a lot of you are loving our outdoor rug as much as we do! I thought it was only appropriate to share how we are caring for it so it remains in tip-top condition.

When I first spotted this rug, I did not think about how we would take care of it. Honestly, I just assumed we would sweep it and move on with our lives. All I focused on was finding a pretty, ivory (or off-white), boho, chic rug. And if you watch my Instagram stories, you know how beautiful and perfect it was when it first arrived.

Well, talk about living and learning. We live in Houston, and if you know anything about this city, you know how humid and disgusting it gets during summertime. After several days of back-to-back rain, we noticed the rug wasn’t drying fast enough. It was probably only a matter of time before mold would start to grow so we took immediate action. I wanted to save my baby because I didn’t want to go through the pain of finding a new one, tbh. It is a time consuming process.

After realizing sweeping wasn’t going to do the trick, we figured the only way to get the tough stains out was with a pressure washer. See for yourself…

Woof.

I mean, I was surprised we were able to salvage the darn thing.

How we care for our outdoor rug:

First we used a pressure washer, and lo and behold, it got the job done! I also created a little mix of Clorox and soap to help get the stains out. I simply mixed those two ingredients with water, in an empty spray bottle, and sprayed the cleaning mix all over the rug.

After pressure washing it for about an hour, we let it air dry overnight. The following morning, we rolled it up, and stored it away until we figured out how to help it dry faster.

My research on maintaining outdoor rugs, led me to order an outdoor rug pad. The one I found had pretty good reviews so we decided to give it a go. It was a little large in size but we were able to trim it with scissors without a problem. We have yet to experience rainy weather so we don’t know how helpful it will be, but as soon as we have rain, I’ll let you know and update this blog post. My hope is that the rug will take less time to dry. This way, even if we have to clean it again in the future, at least it will be dry, not heavy and soaked from the rain.

By the way, we purchased the first pressure washer linked below, but since it is powered by gas, I found an electric option with plenty (6K+) of great reviews. The PSI is lower, but if it’s getting the job done, I guess that part doesn’t matter. (By the way, ours can also be found at Lowes, I just couldn’t add it to the widget below so if you want to check it out at Lowes, I’ll link it here. It’s $280 compared to $498 on eBay – cray!)

Ps. To see more photos of the rug, or the outdoor patio layout, check out this blog post. The photos on that blog post were taken AFTER cleaning the rug. Proof the pressure washer worked 😉