This $5 IKEA Hack Makes for the Cutest Holiday Decor (It’s So Retro!)

Mini house collectibles (think: the TikTok-famous Lenox Spice Village houses) are especially adorable around the holidays, and retailers like Michaels, Lowe’s, and Target offer kits and pre-made houses that you can buy to create entire gingerbread house-scapes atop your mantel or use for a dining room centerpiece. 

But if you want to continue the Christmas village theme throughout your house, consider this under-$20 project a couple DIYers on social media have been trying. It’s the ultimate adorable, affordable IKEA hack.

Here’s all you do: Take a TRAMPA doormat (it starts at just $5!), use a box cutter or sharp scissors to create a house-like shape with an angled roof, then paint a gingerbread house-inspired design on the front. 

Sweden-based DIYer Mai (@maiifin) snipped off the top corners of her TRAMPA, painted a white border around the whole thing, and then added simple shapes to create a window, front door, and roof. Mai says you can use wall paint or craft paint for this. 

Los Angeles-based Tina le Mac created a cute IKEA hack rug for fall, so it’s no surprise she made one for winter, too. She added color to her rug using outdoor acrylic paint, and she also cut a bit off the sides of the rug to create the exact shape she was after. She recommends spray painting the background color over the whole rug because it took her a while to get a fully saturated look by just stippling with a brush. 

Still, the hard work was worth it. Tina says on Instagram, “it literally just makes me so happy to look at whenever I step into my apartment.”

You can iterate on these designs by attaching poms for a bit of texture, creating a whole village or roofline with a longer runner, or cutting a house shape and adding your own paint designs to something with a pre-existing pattern, like the VINTERFINT. Because the TRAMPA costs just $5 or $10, depending on the size you buy, you don’t have much to lose! Take a DIY risk for some cheery December decor.