Trade Secrets
How To Size Area Rugs
Showing Equal Amounts Of Flooring
One common rule for sizing area rugs is to leave 12″-18″ of bare floor showing all around the room. If you are having an area rug cut and bound by a local dealer, that provider can cut around any unique angles in your space so that you show exactly the same amount of bare floor all around your new area rug.
Anchoring Your Seating Area
Many designers size an area rug so that it is large enough to anchor the main seating area in the room. If you choose this option, the area rug should be substantial enough in size so that it does not look like a “postage stamp” in your room.
Furniture doesn’t slide when its completely on the area rug but sometimes you will have a portion of the furniture floating off the rug. Use felt pads from home improvement stores to level the furniture so that it doesn’t tip where it rests off the rug. You can add non-stick padding to the felt to make it more slip resistant.
Using Two Rugs
If you have a very large room, you can use two area rugs to help divide the space. Many times, we will use two different but complimentary area rugs for this purpose. For instance, we might use a patterned rug with the same pattern but reversed background/border colors. One rug might have a tan colored background in the center with a green colored background in the border. The complimentary rug might have the green center and tan border.
We recommend that you put blue painters’ tape down on their existing floor where the new area rugs will go so you can better visualize the size you want. Once a rug has been ordered, it is too late to make a sizing change.