Old Hose – New Life

Floor mat made out of cut hoses — Door mat made out of cut hoses

Have you ever thrown an old hose away and thought that there should be some use for it instead of clogging up the landfill? Here is something that anyone can do, even if your creativity is non-existent. I saw this on Pinterest, was intrigued, and figured out how to construct it. It took just a few minutes each day to make it.

First, get hold of an old floor mat. I have lots of these hanging around that are faded but still serviceable.

Start with an old floor mat, a piece of hose, and some E-6000 adhesive

The adhesive E-6000 is strong, waterproof, and easy to work with as long as you wear gloves. You could get high on the fumes so work in a ventilated area! I used 3 tubes of this.

I start by making a shape out of the hose, a crescent shape that will be the outer ring of the mat and will be the shape that all your pieces will be glued next to. Cut with pruners or tin snips. This is the hardest part of the entire project! Hoses are really tough with added fibers. Add the E-6000 in liberal amounts to the back of the hose pieces and stick it to the mat. Weight the pieces down with something heavy. I used some old paint cans. Wait for at least a couple of hours for the pieces to adhere and cut a few more pieces and glue them down. Continue in this manner until you are almost to the center.

015 (3) — Weight the hose pieces down with heavy stuff so that the pieces won’t shift

013 — Apply lots of adhesive. Here I have bare hands and had a hard time removing the glue from my hands. Use gloves!

The center pieces are just folded in half. Finish off with a short piece for the center, and then I used sturdy scissors to cut around the perimeter of the mat, trimming it so it is flush with the hose edge. I used a table saw to cut every piece of hose flush on the straight bottom edge and Voila – You have a new recycled floor mat! It took one entire hose of 50′ in length to make this.