Adventures of Binding a Rug

My neighbor recently re-carpeted his condo and asked us if we'd like a big square of leftover carpet. Seeing as how our (hopefully) house has ceramic tile floors in the living room we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a free area rug. The only problem was that it wasn't bound around the edges and shed like a beast.

So I took to figuring out how to cheaply bind it.

I ended up buying a yard of matching fabric (on clearance for $6) and after measuring the perimeter of my rug rectangle, cut 10, 44 inch strips. I then ironed a fold into each strip about an inch down.

Next I took to cutting the carpet. This started out okay, but by my 9th yard my hands were dying! Anyways I cut the carpet down about an inch up to make it easier for me to attach the strips around the edge.

After that I took my  handy stapler and lined the folded part of the ribbon with the edge of the carpet, then stapled. I found out that the less cheap the staple, the less likely it will be to fail. I also learned here that after about 9 yards of that the palms of my  hands wanted to die. 

Next I folded the strip over the edge and hot glued it to the back of the carpet, with LOTS of glue! 

The front ended up looking like this.

Here's a view of (almost) the whole rug (my "workspace" was too small to unfold it entirely). 

I think it turned out pretty nice! It will definitely be a nice $6 area rug for us, for the time being atleast!

***House update***

We have our inspection on Friday!