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How to choose the right rug for your room

How to choose the right rug for your room

A nice rug can often set the tone of a room. It can help turn a room into a comforting and welcoming environment. This all comes down to choosing the right size, shape and colour rug to go with the room, while keeping in mind the amount of space you have in the room and what type of room you are fitting out.

Rugs can help to reduce noise around the house especially on hard surface floors like hardwood and tile. It would also absorb noise from the air, which would help to reduce, or remove, an echo. So choosing a thicker material, such as wool, would benefit more here as a thin cotton rug would not make much of a difference.

The rug can be any size, shape or colour as long as they are relative to the style and size of the room.The size of a rug is only relative the the size of a room because if a rug is too big or too small it may throw off the look of the room and make it less aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The rug should also go with the colour scheme of the room to appear more pleasing.

This also depends on the type of room, for example, in a living room you could use a large rug to place all the furniture on (chair, sofa, coffee table, etc.). In doing this you will anchor all the furniture to the floor.But a smaller rug may be preferable with furniture surrounding using the rug as a centre piece.

Often people comment on beautiful landscapes and I feel finding that the right rug can give a room similar attributes of beauty that people see in nature. Almost like making the room an environment and the furniture and perfect rug the terrain to go with it. It can help give your room the warmth you feel when you see a perfect sunset or other spectacular things seen in nature.

Pairing the right rug to the right room can be tricky. I’m not saying that a room should be designed around a single item such as a rug, but a rug that is not suited to its surrounding environment may ruin the style of a room. But a room designed around a rug can be done and would turn out just as well, if you were willing to take that route.

The material of a rug is mostly down to preference with a few thing such as durability and quality that come into play when trying to choose. How you want it to feel under your foot would be another major factor when choosing the material for your rug. Materials such as wool,cotton and natural fibres come to mind. All are durable materials the only differences are texture and price. A soft wool rug can bring warmth to a room such as a living room with a hard material for flooring, but a cotton rug may be the best option for an already carpeted floor as it is much cheaper.

The quality of the rug is very important when trying choosing a rug. A good quality wool rug is very resilient and will bounce back from indentations left by furniture and footsteps. This natural resilience allows the rug to stay looking fresher for longer, without having to do as much work on it as would have to be done on a lower quality rug.

Where as a cotton rug would often be much thinner and not as soft and plush as a wool carpet but is still just as durable and much easier to clean. There are many other material options for rugs such as natural fibres, synthetics, silk and hydes. Often when choosing you would also have to think about where is is going to be placed, as the environment (sunlight and moisture)  may affect the appearance of the rug such as colour fading or shrinking

A thick rug is ideal for cushioning footsteps, is much more comfortable to walk on and is better for joints and bones. It is also much less slippy compared to a hard surface floor such as hardwood or tile. When slips and falls would occur they would be much more forgiving, due to the cushioning given by the rug. This is especially useful if young children are running around the house. Choosing a good quality rug will also prevent furniture from moving as much and help to protect hard surface floors from scuffs and marks.

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