Garden and Homes

For the professional home decorator or interior designer, choosing the right size area rug comes naturally. For the novice do-it-yourselfer, this can be somewhat of a struggle. How do you decide on the size of your area rug? Here are some things to consider that will help narrow down the selection.

The first thing you should decide is how the rug will be used. There are three different uses for area rugs: the focal point, the accessory, and the practical. The focal point use is pretty obvious. The rug is the main attraction, so to speak, of the room’s décor. The accessory use is when you want the rug to compliment the room decoration and become part of it, rather than stand alone as a focal point. Chances are you’ve already used area rugs that have a practical use. Welcome mats are a perfect example of these. Practical use rugs are generally used to protect flooring, like hardwood, or to keep the floor clean.

For focal point use, larger rugs are better to help accentuate the focal point. There’s no end the sizes of large area rugs, so a little shopping around will be required. 9 x 12 area rugs are the standard large size and can be found at most rug shops and flooring stores for reasonable prices. Any area rug used under furniture can be considered a focal point rug. A coffee table is a perfect example for this. The size should be big enough to accommodate the coffee table but small enough to leave a bit of bare floor between the rug edges and the surrounding furniture i.e.; sofas, recliners, etc. This will draw the eye even more toward the central point; the coffee table.

Coffee tables are just one type of furniture to be used with area rugs. Different rules apply to different furniture so it’s important to take them into account when choosing rugs. For instance, dining rooms and bedrooms are good candidates for are rug usage. In terms of a dinner table, you can imagine that you’ll want to have enough rug area for those being seated at the table to have something both under their feet and their chair (there’s nothing worse than being only partially on a rug). A good rule of thumb in this case is to get an area rug that extends about 4 feet from all sides of the table.

Bedrooms tend to be slightly more difficult than living rooms or dining rooms. People like to have more warmth in their bedrooms and, therefore, choose larger rugs. This is a great room to use two rugs at once. You could use one under the bed and one, perhaps, in the center of the room to compliment the surrounding furniture. Usually, when using two rugs in one room, they’re different sizes. However, if you have enough space, two rugs of the same size could be used. Just be sure there’s enough underlying floor visible to make the room visually pleasing and not overcrowded.