When you walk up to your apartment, what are you thinking? Are you anticipating a well-deserved rest from school? Are you wondering if your roommate ate all your food again?

Maybe you’re simply admiring your craftiness, which is so abundant that you can’t keep it inside your door. Say what?

So far, I’ve focused on things to decorate the inside of your apartment, but your sense of style is way bigger than that — I’ll bet it even goes past your front door. This week, I’ll tell you how you can let the world know you’re resourceful, crafty and have great taste by creating your own DIY rug. No knitting skills required.

Gather your favorite decorator-weight fabric (the thick stuff), a rubber doormat in the size you want, scissors, a paint brush, an iron and an ironing board, spray adhesive and water-based polyurethane. You can find the last item — as well as rubber mat material — at any hardware store. If you can’t find a mat in the right size (or shape), just cut it to fit.

Cut your fabric so that it’s bigger than the mat by about two inches on all sides. Use the iron to smooth out the wrinkles in your fabric so you have a smooth surface to work with. Then, spray adhesive on the smooth side of your mat, if there is one. This will be the pretty side of your mat, so put your fabric on with the patterned part facing up.

Spray those two extra inches of fabric with adhesive and fold them on the backside of the mat. (Watch out for the corners!) After the adhesive has dried, paint a layer of the polyurethane onto the fabric side of your mat. Let it dry for two hours or so before adding another coat. Repeat for two more coats, and voilà! Your rug is complete.

When I was shopping for my apartment, I had the hardest time finding an area rug that my fiancé and I both liked and would someday welcome into our own apartment. Everything was either too ugly or too expensive.

I ended up getting a solid brown rug that is the same shade as my couch. It’s ok, but definitely not the statement piece I was looking for. Too bad I didn’t know how to make my own rug then, or I would have saved myself money and prevented my room from being so monochromatic.

One of the things engaged couples fight about a lot (so I’ve heard) is taste. It’s no fun if one of you is making all the decisions and the other person is just along for the ride.

When my fiancé and I were setting up our gift registry, he definitely had opinions about color, fabric and what brand of coffee maker he wanted. One of the awesome things about DIY is if you’re doing it yourself, there’s room for both of you.

I’m really excited to be able to create things for the home that reflect both my taste and his, not just the rug manufacturer’s. I think rugs add a lot of character to a room since they’re so prominent, and if you can put down something that’s more meaningful than “this one was on sale,” you’ve added quite a bit of yourself to your home.

My fiancé and I are completely different people. I’m a cat person, but he’s a dog lover. I’m impulsive, and he’s methodical. It’s great to know that we have options beyond what the stores offer so we don’t end up fighting about things that aren’t that serious.

Likewise, if you collaborate with your roommates to create décor that suits everybody, you’ll be able to put your differences aside and focus on what really matters. Like finding out who ate your Cheerios.