The best rugs to ground a room
If you pick up any copy of House & Garden, you will likely find the pages filled with beautiful rugs: from thick pile wool rugs and antique Turkish carpets to informal, shaggy Berber rugs, from rustic sisal to ultra-glamorous contemporary designs. The best rugs have the power to completely transform a living space, so it's strange that the choosing of them is often left to an afterthought. Whether you are buying a new rug for your dining room or for underneath your coffee table, this homeware will effect the overall impression of a room just as much as wallpaper will. Legendary interior designer and textiles dealer Robert Kime famously starts his room schemes with a rug, so we should take cues from him and lead from the ground up.
How to decorate effectively with rugs
There are myriad ways to decorate with rugs and simply placing a plain or patterned rug on the floor can change the feel of a room instantly. Our decoration columnist, Rita Konig, recommends using a rug to "pull a room together," as "furniture on a bare floor can look a little as if it is skating about untethered." Be aware of how the scale of the pattern will look in contrast to the size of the room. A large scale, monochrome patterned rug will likely be more overwhelming and obvious than a Persian style rug in a low pile, so it will sit more comfortably in a small space than the former.
Whilst they are wonderful at bringing a room together, they can also be useful for denoting different 'areas' or 'sections' in an open-plan space. In this scenario, an area rug can define the main seating area in a living room, and then different rugs can be used to delineate the space for a desk or the dining table.
In the hallway, rugs can be an excellent way to experiment with a bolder pattern. "Rather like the way a wallpaper can open up the walls and give a greater sense of space, a patterned carpet in a long corridor will create a brighter and more open space," says Rita.
36 best rugs, according to our editors
Pastel tones
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Citrus hues
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More rugs to shop
How do I pick the right size rug for the room?
According to Rita, the general rule of thumb is that a "large rug that takes up the whole room should be about 45cm away from the walls." This will ensure that the room feels grounded without being claustrophobic, or bunching up against the walls. If you have fallen in love with a rug and it simply isn't big enough, getting a larger rug made up in a natural material, such as sisal or coconut matting and then layering the smaller one on top will help to avoid the "bath mat" situation. The layering of rugs is especially common in Moroccan or Middle Eastern homes and creates a really lovely atmosphere, especially on top of smart wooden floors.
What style of rug do I need?
There's a huge range of materials and techniques out there, and not all of them are suitable for every kind of room. Make sure you pick hardwearing and high-quality materials for areas where a lot of people are going to be walking, such as hallways, kitchens and utility areas, while finer materials are better as decorative centrepieces in sitting rooms and dining rooms. At the more affordable end of the spectrum are natural fibre, eco-friendly rugs, like a sisal or jute rugs, which are great as base layers on top of which we like to layer other, more colourful rugs. They also work beautifully on their own and lend a friendly, country house feel to a room. Cotton is used for flat-weave rugs that are hard-wearing and easy to clean, making this material a good choice for 'high-traffic areas', whilst wool is the most common material you'll find in a rug. At the most luxurious end of the spectrum you'll find silk or wool-silk blends, which are gloriously soft underfoot, though perhaps best suited for 'low-traffic areas' like bedrooms. The same applies for shag or sheepskin rugs, as the texture of these can quickly turn matted with constant use.
For outdoors or for muddy entrances or utility rooms, synthetic materials like
polypropylene, while less than glamorous, are extremely practical. For more on this, have a look at our guide to outdoor rugs here.
How to care for your rug
As Christie's carpet specialist Louise Broadhurst notes, "it is important to clean a carpet regularly. This can be done with a domestic hoover on a light setting, but if it requires a more thorough clean it should be handled by a professional carpet cleaner." If you choose to attempt to wash your rug yourself, make sure you test any cleaning solution (whether it's just dish soap or a carpet shampoo) on an inconspicuous corner of the rug first to make sure the colour doesn't run. Then you can work the solution into the rug using a sponge or soft brush. Let it sink in for five minutes or so, then rise thoroughly. This is best done outside with the help of a garden hose or buckets of water. A wet-dry vacuum can help you remove excess water from the rug, before leaving it to dry.
For more advice on how to choose and position a rug, take a look at Rita Konig's column on the subject, which details her favourite stockists and advises on how to avoid the 'flying carpet' problem when arranging rugs and furniture.
