Carpet, Rugs & Flooring,Design Dilemma | February 10, 20093 Comments

Design Dilemma: Laying Rugs Over Carpet

I thought you’d like to read this Design Dilemma from a couple of years ago. It’s a subject that never goes out of style.

Design Hole reader, Karahmia asks, “I live in an apartment with the standard beige carpet, but would love to incorporate rugs to add color and interest. Are there any rules to making the rugs and carpets work well together?”

That’s a great question. Here are some tips to brighten up a boring carpet choice.

Start with a Special Pad. Before we start on the aesthetics, make sure you use a pad especially designed for this purpose under your rug. If you don’t, the underlying carpet will pill and shred. Good-bye security deposit. You can purchase these at the link provided, or at your local carpet shop.

Think of a rug as a picture frame.

When you frame art you use a frame and sometimes a mat. They’re used to highlight the art held within. A rug, whether it’s over carpet or not, should do the same thing. It should pull grouped elements together.

A rug framing a dining area, for example, should have enough “mat” space around the table and chairs to create a good sense of proportion. The photo (below) shows a rug under a dining set. It looks wrong. Why? Because the frame is too small to hold the artwork. If the chairs are pulled out they’ll fall out of the frame.

Look at the living room below. This is rug over tile, but we’ll pretend it’s beige carpet. The rug looks right because it frames elements within it. Notice that it doesn’t completely cover all the furniture. It still works because it centers the furniture and our eye creates an imaginary frame around the entire grouping. It also creates a focal point within the room. To get this look, set the sofa on the inside edge of the rug.

Avoid the striped effect. Look at the above photo again. It doesn’t cross the entire room. It grounds the furniture. So, don’t buy a rug that runs the entire width of the room. It will look too large and cut off whatever is going on in the rest of the room.

Size really does matter. The biggest mistake people make is using a rug that’s too small. In the case, below, they’ve chosen a rug that doesn’t even frame the cocktail table. It’s too small to create impact. Again, proportion is so important. Had the designer bought a rug large enough to incorporate the sofas, this would have looked great.

A good thing to know are the standard rug sizes. They are: 6′x9″, 8′x10′, 9′x12′ and 12′x15′. The larger the rug, the harder it is to find. I find that 9′x12′ is the usual limit. But you can find ready made rugs as large as 15′x18′. And if that’s not what you’re looking for, try FLOR where you can make your carpet to any size you like. Or, purchase carpeting and have it made into an area rug.

I hope this helps, Karahmia. Let me know.

Design Hole readers, don’t forget to send in your design dilemmas! The more the merrier!