How to choose a rug
April 26, 2023 11:40 AM Subscribe
How does one choose a rug? How does one know what size to get? Colors to get? So confusing...
So I live in a largish loft. About 75 feet long and 17 feet wide. Right now I sorta have two living rooms (sitting areas) demarcated by two rugs which I don't particularly like. I want to get new rugs but am at a loss.
I quite like the colorful and non-symmetrical rugs at Kenza and Co, like this one and this one, but have no idea if I should be trying to match colors of furniture or walls or what?
I have a lot of brick walls, some white walls, and one large, 14 x 17 red wall.
I own this sofa and this sofa and this chair and ottoman and this chair without the footrest, all in those colors. I own some abstract paintings.
Literally no idea what to buy, size or color-wise.
I also have a dog that sheds. Are wool rugs like those linked above a terrible idea for this situation?
So I live in a largish loft. About 75 feet long and 17 feet wide. Right now I sorta have two living rooms (sitting areas) demarcated by two rugs which I don't particularly like. I want to get new rugs but am at a loss.
I quite like the colorful and non-symmetrical rugs at Kenza and Co, like this one and this one, but have no idea if I should be trying to match colors of furniture or walls or what?
I have a lot of brick walls, some white walls, and one large, 14 x 17 red wall.
I own this sofa and this sofa and this chair and ottoman and this chair without the footrest, all in those colors. I own some abstract paintings.
Literally no idea what to buy, size or color-wise.
I also have a dog that sheds. Are wool rugs like those linked above a terrible idea for this situation?
My home has some odd shapes and structures, and here's what has helped me figure out the answers to this type of question.
To get a grounding in basic principles and vocabulary: there are lots of interior designers who make helpful YouTube videos with guidelines and illustrations. Suggest putting in "how to choose a rug" and finding a person who syncs with your sense of style. I often end up watching Nick Lewis videos.
Like spamandkimchi suggests, I made a Google Slides file for what I'd call playing with paper dolls: one large "slide" per room, with pictures of stuff I have & stuff I'm considering, arranged in a way that approximates each room.
Then I used The Expert to hire an interior designer for a one-hour video consultation for $450. They have people with various styles, and I chose this person because I loved her photos of her work. I gave her a copy of my slides file and photos of the current state of my home, and we talked about my various questions. It was fun and helpful to get a review from a trained and experienced designer - she pointed out a lot of potential issues and opportunities that I hadn't seen, along with telling me where I was already on a good path. Definitely worth the cost, because she gave me more confidence in my plans and helped me avoid some potential mistakes that would have cost more than $450 to rework.
posted by dreamyshade at 12:22 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
To get a grounding in basic principles and vocabulary: there are lots of interior designers who make helpful YouTube videos with guidelines and illustrations. Suggest putting in "how to choose a rug" and finding a person who syncs with your sense of style. I often end up watching Nick Lewis videos.
Like spamandkimchi suggests, I made a Google Slides file for what I'd call playing with paper dolls: one large "slide" per room, with pictures of stuff I have & stuff I'm considering, arranged in a way that approximates each room.
Then I used The Expert to hire an interior designer for a one-hour video consultation for $450. They have people with various styles, and I chose this person because I loved her photos of her work. I gave her a copy of my slides file and photos of the current state of my home, and we talked about my various questions. It was fun and helpful to get a review from a trained and experienced designer - she pointed out a lot of potential issues and opportunities that I hadn't seen, along with telling me where I was already on a good path. Definitely worth the cost, because she gave me more confidence in my plans and helped me avoid some potential mistakes that would have cost more than $450 to rework.
posted by dreamyshade at 12:22 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Re - wool rugs and pets: Owner of barfy cats here who prefers indoor/outdoor rugs because they’re easier to wash. There’s some attractive stuff available.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:22 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:22 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Will the rug be more "art" or more "frame"? If you have other beautiful things (they can be simple or complex) that make you happy to look at, then the rug should complement those things and be simple and either structural or soft. If you don't have a "arty thing" going on in the room, and if you can arrange the room so that the center and an edge or two are very visible, then you could go for a really interesting, beautiful rug that will be framed by your simpler (or darker, or lighter, or less colorful, or just less complicated) furniture, walls, and floor.
posted by amtho at 12:58 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 12:58 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I took a textiles class in uni and one of the teacher's goals was to answer this question.
The takeaways I remember, so many years later: for the backing/bottom layer, avoid natural fabrics (like jute aka burlap), because any wetness will kill that kind of rug (and you may not even notice, for a while). And the dyes of the pile should be synthetic, the colors will last longer than natural dyes? But I may have that backwards.
posted by Rash at 1:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
The takeaways I remember, so many years later: for the backing/bottom layer, avoid natural fabrics (like jute aka burlap), because any wetness will kill that kind of rug (and you may not even notice, for a while). And the dyes of the pile should be synthetic, the colors will last longer than natural dyes? But I may have that backwards.
posted by Rash at 1:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for the answers thus far.
Regarding my dog, she'll not make a mess on the carpet. It's just shedding hair I'm curious about. I have a decent animal-hair-specific vacuum but have not used it on a wool carpet.
posted by dobbs at 3:33 PM on April 26, 2023
Regarding my dog, she'll not make a mess on the carpet. It's just shedding hair I'm curious about. I have a decent animal-hair-specific vacuum but have not used it on a wool carpet.
posted by dobbs at 3:33 PM on April 26, 2023
The rugs you've linked to are gorgeous. I think the one with red in particular would look great with your furniture and art, under whatever grouping has the red chair, especially if the chair is on the non-red part of the rug. I bet both would look great, but something with some red would probably be really fun with the neutrals and your art. Though the similarities between the two could be really fun as well, if you had them both. Your stuff is gorgeous, by the way! (I just noticed the retailer for those rugs is in Spain; if you're not in Spain, then it would be pretty expensive to send them back, so you might want to find a retailer in your own country, or one with free returns.)
I have some grey and black furniture and neutral walls in my living room, and I got a colorful (red and orange) wool rug. I have some pops of orange and red on the pillows and am looking for art with those colors as well, and it all works together well.
For sizing, you want the furniture to be partly or all the way on top of the rug. Sometimes you'll see pictures where folks don't do that, because bigger rugs are more expensive. I don't mean literally everything has to be on it, but if you have a cozy grouping of sofa and chair, then the rug can be under both, even just the front legs, and that looks pretty good! A rug can really define a space well. If you use something
I also have pets with my wool rugs, and I think you'll be fine.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:10 PM on April 26, 2023
I have some grey and black furniture and neutral walls in my living room, and I got a colorful (red and orange) wool rug. I have some pops of orange and red on the pillows and am looking for art with those colors as well, and it all works together well.
For sizing, you want the furniture to be partly or all the way on top of the rug. Sometimes you'll see pictures where folks don't do that, because bigger rugs are more expensive. I don't mean literally everything has to be on it, but if you have a cozy grouping of sofa and chair, then the rug can be under both, even just the front legs, and that looks pretty good! A rug can really define a space well. If you use something
I also have pets with my wool rugs, and I think you'll be fine.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:10 PM on April 26, 2023
Wool rugs are the gold standard of rugs. They wear beautifully, take dye beautifully, and resist fading. There's a reason Oriental wool rugs can endure for generations! Wool rugs are usually more expensive to purchase than nylon or other synthetics, which is why synthetics are so often chosen. To be fair, synthetics have improved hugely in recent decades, but still, they usually are trying to mimic the durability and lush colors of wool.
Whatever rug you choose, you will extend its life by using padding underneath. If a board is uneven underneath, for example, an unpadded rug will wear along that ridge. If your rugs are reversible, which it looks might be the case with the examples you linked, flip them over and rotate them occasionally to reduce wear along frequently-walked pathways, and to move the pressure points your furniture puts on the spots where they sit on the rug - this will also extend the time your rugs will look gorgeous.
I love your taste in furniture and art!
posted by citygirl at 5:01 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Whatever rug you choose, you will extend its life by using padding underneath. If a board is uneven underneath, for example, an unpadded rug will wear along that ridge. If your rugs are reversible, which it looks might be the case with the examples you linked, flip them over and rotate them occasionally to reduce wear along frequently-walked pathways, and to move the pressure points your furniture puts on the spots where they sit on the rug - this will also extend the time your rugs will look gorgeous.
I love your taste in furniture and art!
posted by citygirl at 5:01 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think your instincts with the rug styles are really good aesthetically. With the color scheme you have, I'd probably really like blues, to offset the red and earthy tones. But I'm not particularly into matching, and there's no reason not to match to something else in the room if you like.
Practically, though, with a pet that sheds, I wonder if those large blocks of solid color are going to be a lot less forgiving than an all-over pattern. You might find yourself vacuuming a lot if you've got a dark rug and a dog with light hair or vice versa. If you can have the shade of the rugs roughly compatible with your dog, that might be more practical.
For size, with a big space like yours, I'd be very tempted to get Really Big rugs, but if you're using them to define sitting areas, you might want something a bit cozier, just big enough to fit the furniture on at a conversational scale.
Also, if you end up with a retailer who's less consistent about their sourcing standards, the Good Weave certification is a recognized fair labor standard in the rug industry.
posted by EvaDestruction at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Practically, though, with a pet that sheds, I wonder if those large blocks of solid color are going to be a lot less forgiving than an all-over pattern. You might find yourself vacuuming a lot if you've got a dark rug and a dog with light hair or vice versa. If you can have the shade of the rugs roughly compatible with your dog, that might be more practical.
For size, with a big space like yours, I'd be very tempted to get Really Big rugs, but if you're using them to define sitting areas, you might want something a bit cozier, just big enough to fit the furniture on at a conversational scale.
Also, if you end up with a retailer who's less consistent about their sourcing standards, the Good Weave certification is a recognized fair labor standard in the rug industry.
posted by EvaDestruction at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I like the type of rugs you linked quite a bit. Bigger blocks of color rather than smaller patterns seems like the way to go, particularly given your artwork. (A lot of the below would be different if you did not have the artwork you do.)
If you have decent floors, I would do this with the rugs: use them to define sitting areas, just big enough to fit the furniture on or around the edges at a conversational scale. To me it would seem a bit busy to have bigger rugs.
My instinct would be to do that so that the rugs don't detract from the bold and dramatic artwork (and also because brick walls will already serve as a bit of a distraction.)
With all that said, I could also see using a rug something like this for the main one of your two sitting areas, with something more solid and neutral for the other.
I also could see you using two variations of this type of rug (say the two in the second/lower row) for your two different sitting areas.
posted by gudrun at 7:32 PM on April 26, 2023
If you have decent floors, I would do this with the rugs: use them to define sitting areas, just big enough to fit the furniture on or around the edges at a conversational scale. To me it would seem a bit busy to have bigger rugs.
My instinct would be to do that so that the rugs don't detract from the bold and dramatic artwork (and also because brick walls will already serve as a bit of a distraction.)
With all that said, I could also see using a rug something like this for the main one of your two sitting areas, with something more solid and neutral for the other.
I also could see you using two variations of this type of rug (say the two in the second/lower row) for your two different sitting areas.
posted by gudrun at 7:32 PM on April 26, 2023
You’ve got nice pieces that will go with pretty much anything. I agree with EvaDestruction about going away from red for the rugs (probably green, as it’s opposite to red on the colour wheel, at a comparable level of saturation). But there are lots of great possibilities, it’s just down to preference: https://www.bhg.com/decorating/color/basics/color-wheel-color-chart/
Would go big as well.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:34 AM on April 27, 2023
Would go big as well.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:34 AM on April 27, 2023
Okay, I forgot about the brick when I was advocating for the red. I think both would look great, but the blue might be better. For your size space, a very large rug will be awesome.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:59 PM on April 27, 2023
posted by bluedaisy at 12:59 PM on April 27, 2023
Response by poster: Thanks, all. I ended up choosing these two rugs and they arrived today. Very happy with them! Thanks for the tips.
If anyone has specific recommendations for non-slip padding / options that would be great. Thanks!
posted by dobbs at 3:54 PM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
If anyone has specific recommendations for non-slip padding / options that would be great. Thanks!
posted by dobbs at 3:54 PM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wirecutter has a really good round up on rug pads, so I'd suggest looking there.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:49 PM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by bluedaisy at 4:49 PM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
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The two main pieces of advice I have are: (in addition to the standard advice on sizes)
1) Layering rugs on top of carpet or larger cheaper rugs is a-okay. Design blogs will often suggest the sisal/jute rug as a under rug. I give this advice in particular as you have a pet (we have two cats). I got a thinner, aesthetically appealing, machine washable area rug to layer on top, so that way if there are any poop or pee incidents I can throw the whole thing into the wash. Some even suggest indoor-outdoor rugs as a durable option.
2) If you are indecisive about color/pattern, make a mock-up of the layout/rug options in Google Slides! No need to use any fancy software.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:59 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]