Rug placement

A day arrived a couple of years ago when Jules had taken Otto for a walk and he called me on the way home to warn me to line the hallway with towels leading straight into the bathroom. In came Otto covered from head to toe in thick, sticky mud and I knew that our carpet had to go. I couldn’t give this huge dog a bath every day for the rest of time for fear that the carpet was being ruined. Therefore, the carpet went and we painted the MDF boards underneath with floor paint, which has given us an easy to clean and more modern feel in our flat. However, there are those times when all I want in life is to feel the soft, sumptuous tread of carpet underfoot, especially at this time of year. That’s where a good rug comes in. I can not express how important a good rug is in pulling a room together, bringing cohesion, adding a cosy feel, softening the echoes and hard edges of a wooden or stone floor.

I bought the most beautiful kilim rug from Turkey a couple of years ago that I have had to surrender as it shows up Otto’s hair so much and it is so thin that he was starting to make holes in it. I have packed it away safely for that forever home in the country I will have one day (!) and instead have bought a much more practical one. As we begin to finish our DIY and I can start to think about styling our sitting room with a new sofa, chairs and rug my mind has wandered to rug placement (yes, that’s a thing). When putting a room together the placement of your furniture in relation to your rug is incredibly important to the overall feel of the room and it impacts on the size of rug you choose.

If someone is struggling with a room and they ask me to take a look almost always one of the glaring problems is that the rug is too small, big or the furniture is laid out in the wrong formation around the rug. Just with a little tug here or pulling a chair forward there and the whole room can feel different – honestly! So, here are some helpful  guidelines that I will be following to help me lay out my rug and furniture in my sitting room…

Floating rug v. Grounded rug

A floating rug is a bad rug. The sofa (block at the top of the graphic – apologies for my poor design skills) does not touch the rug (rectangle in the middle) and nor do the two chairs (two dark blocks at the bottom of the graphic). The rug is too small resulting in the room feeling disjointed and ‘bitty’.

A grounded rug, on the other hand, is a good rug. It is large enough for the two front legs of the sofa to sit on the rug, as well as the front legs of both the chairs. This pulls all of the furniture together, creates a cohesive feel and grounds the room. Ideally there should be about 50cm from the edge of the rug to the walls of the room. I have decided to go with two chairs opposite our new sofa, now that we have sold our teal loveseat, so I will be arranging them to follow this simple rule.

In the past I have struggled to find affordable on-trend rugs but it feels like everyone is catching on quick so I’m very pleased to be collaborating with Carpetright on this post to introduce you to their new range created by House Beautiful – pretty good, hey? I love the different textures, muted colours and bold designs and I think my favourite design is ‘Valley’.

Right, I’m off to place my rug – happy weekend!

Katy x