How to Buy the Right Rug

Buying a rug can be a daunting task.  What looks good in the showroom or online, suddenly looks all wrong when you bring it home.  I have just bought a new rug for my living room, and I will take you through step by step how to buy the right rug for your room.

What Size Rug do you Need?

Before you even start looking at rugs to buy, you first need to look at the room you are putting the rug in and decide what is the best size rug for that area.  We have written a couple of guides to choosing the right size rug:

• How to Choose the Right Size Rug for a Queen Size Bed
• How to Choose the Right Size Rug for a Living Room

Based on the above guide, I knew I wanted an Anchor Rug.  This is a rug that anchors the seating area.  The rug needed to be long enough to extend under the sofa and chairs, but not all the way to the wall, and it needed to be wide enough to extend a little each side of the sofa.

I used my measuring tape to work out roughly what size I would need and then looked at the common rug sizes to see what would work.  I needed an 8′ x 10′ (approx 245 x 305cm) rug for this room.  This alone will immediately narrow down my choice of rugs.

What Colour Rug do you Need?

The next thing to work out, is what colours you want the rug to be and how it will work with the other colours in the room.

My formal living room is designed to be a calm and relaxing space.  The rug needs to work with the dark timber floors, the walls which are painted Resene Quarter Arrowtown, and the linen sofa and armchairs.  I decided to keep the rug neutral too and stick with a beige/linen colour.  I can easily add colour to the room through cushions, throw rugs and accessories which are more affordable to change.

I found determining the colour palette an important step. I kept seeing rugs with blue in them that I liked, but I knew I didn’t want to introduce blue in this room, as I have enough blue throughout the rest of the house.

Rug colours can be hard when shopping online, so make sure the company offers returns if the rug is not the right colour.  If shopping for a rug in person, take samples of your paint and fabric colours with you.

What Pattern and Texture Rug do you Need?

So you know how big your rug needs to be and what colours you need, but before you run off to buy one, take one more minute to consider what pattern or texture you want the rug to add to the room.

My formal living room is a classic style so I knew a traditional pattern would probably work well.  A mixture of straight and curved lines to compliment the straight and curved lines of the furniture.  Alternatively a sophisticated geometric trellis pattern could also work well.  As the room is neutral and the rug is neutral, pattern helps to add interest to the room.

The texture of the rug also adds interest to the room – a cut pile wool or polypropylene rug, a chunky jute or sisal rug, or a long pile shaggy rug will all add a different feel and texture to the room.  I was looking for a rug that had the soft chenille qualities of a traditional Aubusson rug, but in a more affordable material that’s easy to clean.

Shopping For the Right Rug

Before you go shopping for a rug, you should know the following things:

• Rug Size – I needed an 8′ x 10′
• Rug Colour – I wanted neutrals beige/linen
• Rug Pattern & Texture – A traditional or geometric pattern in a soft short texture

If you have worked out these things, shopping for a rug will be so much easier.  There are so many rugs available to buy, that narrowing them down to rugs that are the right size, colour and within your budget will make the decision much simpler.

Armed with this information I started shopping for a rug and found almost exactly what I was looking for online at Au Rugs

This rug met my criteria – the right size, the right colours, and the right style of pattern.  The added bonus was it is a transitional indoor/outdoor rug which means it is easy to clean.  (My dog has a habit of being sick on rugs – not much fun to clean).  I ordered the rug and a non-slip rug underlay.  The rug was Fedex’ed from the USA to me in one week and shipping was included in the price of the rug.

I moved all the furniture out of the room, and laid out the underlay.  Then I laid out the rug.

The only downside to this rug is that to ship it, the rug is folded in half and then rolled up, which leaves fold lines in the rug.  I am hopeful that after a few weeks of being laid out on the floor these lines and bumps will flatten out.

So that is step by step what you need to do to find the right rug for your home.  If you are on the hunt for the right rug, I can recommend AU rugs and Temple and Webster currently have free shipping on all rugs (until 31st July, 2016).  If this information helped you to choose a new rug, we’d love to hear from you and see a picture of your rug.  Happy DIY decorating!

I'm Kylie, and I love to share practical home decorating and styling tips. I'm a qualified interior designer and self taught crafter and DIY'er. I'm addicted to decorating, and can't walk past a homewares shop without going in for a look. I live in a 1930's Queenslander in Brisbane's inner suburbs which I'm turning into a home one project at a time.