DIY Rainbow Welcome Mat

This rainbow welcome mat adds a cheerful pop of color to your front porch. It’s easy to make and will hold up to spring showers and summer sun.

I don’t want to toot my own horn too much, but isn’t this welcome mat gorgeous??

After I made my DIY Rainbow Wreath I wanted to repaint my old coir welcome mat to match. Once I started on that project, I realized the coir was beyond saving. It wasn’t just dirty and faded – it was crumbling. Our porch tends to flood when it rains heavily and that coir mat had soaked in some funky rainwater quite a few times over its life.

I realized that the solution to my front porch taking regular showers was to use something that would hold up to BEING SHOWERED. So yep, this is a teak shower mat. It’s about an inch tall, so the water can run off and drain out from underneath. It dries much more quickly than the coir!

Of course, you can use my painting technique on any type of outdoor mat. It’s pretty simple, but I think that’s also what makes it so fun.

How to make a rainbow welcome mat

Supplies

• Wooden shower mat – I purchased mine at Bed Bath & Beyond.
• sandpaper
• Deco Art Curb Appeal in farmhouse white
• Deco Art Patio Paint in geranium red, pumpkin, fiesta yellow, apple green, blue jay, and petunia purple
• foam paint brushes
• old newspapers to protect your workspace

Instructions

1. Sand the welcome mat.

The original look below was pretty and I briefly thought about just using it as-is, but that wouldn’t make for a very interesting tutorial.

Start by sanding the wooden mat lightly. This will remove any finish and create a smooth surface for the paint to stick to. Wipe off all the sawdust.

2. Paint a base coat.

I used the white paint to do a base coat over the top and four sides. I didn’t worry about the underside or between the slats. You can’t really see those parts anyway.

After letting that dry about an hour, I painted the outside frame and the four sides with a second coat. I probably could’ve done a third, but I wasn’t concerned with it looking seamless.

3. Paint the primary stripes.

My welcome mat has 8 slats, so in addition to the red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple that I had in paint, I needed to mix up two additional colors. First, I painted the six colors I didn’t need to mix. I left a slat at the top to be pink and a slat between blue and purple to be indigo.

While you could use painters’ tape to get the edges perfectly straight, I didn’t feel like it was necessary. I just held my brush at an angle and pulled away slowly to get a straight edge.

I let that dry while I mixed up my paint and did the other two slats.

For the pink, I just mixed equal parts of the red and white on my newspaper. I stirred it with my sponge brush and then brushed it onto the top slat.

I did the same thing for the indigo, mixing equal amounts of blue and purple. Plan ahead when mixing the paint colors; if you need to do a second coat, it may be hard to get the exact same shade. You can either mix more than you think you need or just try to get it close on the second coat.

After all the color stripes had dried for about an hour, I painted a second coat on each one. For the main colors, it was easy enough to use the same paint. For the colors I mixed, I just mixed some more because I wasn’t worried about them being precisely the same.

I let the whole thing dry indoors for about 48 hours before I put it outside. Since this is outdoor paint, it didn’t need a clear coat.

Colorful front porch decor

The rainbow welcome mat looks right at home on my front porch! See the rest of the projects in this front porch makeover:

• DIY Rainbow Wreath
• DIY Painted Yard Flamingo Planter
• How to Paint Concrete

How did it hold up?

I originally made this rainbow welcome mat in May 2019. Now 4 years later in May of 2023, I’m still using it. Here are a couple of things to note:

• I use this welcome mat during the warmer half of the year, about March through August. I have other seasonal/holiday mats in the other half of the year, September through February.
• The paint has stayed vibrant for most of each season, but I have done a quick paint touch-up at the beginning of each year.
• The wood itself has a few tiny hairline cracks, but nothing notable that makes me worry that it’s going to break.
• We redid our porch with wood tiles and it stays in place as nicely on wood as it did on concrete.

What’s next? Try these other fun and creative ideas on One Mama’s Daily Drama:

• 4 Free Printable Rainbow Coloring Pages
• 10 Fun Rainbow Crafts for Color Lovers
• Rainbow Wall Hanging DIY Tutorial