When it comes to laying the groundwork for a beautiful room, Loloi Rugs knows their stuff—literally. The beloved rug brand is known for creating some of the design world’s covetable rugs, including floor coverings designed in partnership with interior world powerhouses like Justina Blakeney, Chris Loves Julia, and AD100 firm Carrier and Company. So when tasked with the question how do you utilize rugs in interior decorating?, we knew there was no one better equipped to hand us down the rules than Loloi. Ahead, the Loloi team provides their insights on how to determine if you actually need a rug, as well as tips for how to situate a rug in a dining room, living room, or bedroom. Read on to discover how to score floors you’ll absolutely adore!
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Why Should I Get a Rug?
While most of us consider a room incomplete without a rug, have you ever stopped to contemplate why? It turns out the benefits of a rug are plentiful and go far beyond visually tying a room together. Here, Loloi outlines five reasons a rug can be a boon in any room.
Reason 1: Hide Imperfections
Whether your home has had one previous tenant—or thirty—chances are high that your floor bears some imperfections. Wood floors, whether real or faux, can showcase dislocation as well as pits and dents. Tile floors can be affected by cracks or chips. Rugs cloak these visual blunders with ease. For particularly uneven floors, be sure to invest in a rug pad.
Reason 2: Add Comfort and Warmth
Just like comforters add warmth to a bed, both physically and literally, so does a rug on the floor. Even if you live in a thermal climate, chances are that temps dip in the morning and evening hours enough to justify a cozy foundation. Thinner rugs like hide rugs, dhurries, or other flatweaves can also strike a nice middle ground if you’re concerned about overdressing your floors.
Reason 3: Protect your Floors and Furniture
Consider the fact that most furniture pieces take two people to move and you have a good context for the wear and tear furniture can exert on your floors. Rugs can prevent your furniture from boring holes in your floors—an especially common problem if you have laminate flooring. Likewise, a rug can protect your furniture from scrapes and dings that come about from subtle shifts over time.
Reason 4: Muffle Sounds
Whether your home possesses high ceilings that amplify every sound or floorboards that emit creaks, a rug can help dampen those sounds. While a rug pad is always a good idea, they’re even more pertinent in noise-canceling scenarios.
Reason 5: Visually Tie a Room Together
Our eyes and brain crave visual unity, and in a room, rugs act as a visual anchor. For this reason, rug experts like Loloi often recommend going with a larger rug size than you initially think you’ll need. Bigger rugs allow you to station furniture on the rug, heightening unity. Rugs can also visually tie a room together with color or pattern. Have gridded windows? Try echoing them with a gridded rug. Have rounded-back dining chairs? Enhance their curves with a scallop-edge rug.
How Do You Use Rugs in a…?
How you use a rug in a particular room will likely depend on what room you’re using it in. For instance, bedroom rugs are often used to dial up the warmth, while living room rugs are more frequently used to visually tie a room together. Here, Loloi lends tips on how to choose an appropriate rug size for the dining room, living room, and bedroom.
Dining Room
When it comes to dining room rugs, it’s imperative that your chairs rest comfortably on the rug—both when tucked in and pulled away from the table, advises the Loloi team. For the sake of maneuverability, you don’t want chairs to land half on, half off of a rug when pulled out. Size up accordingly.
Living Room
Loloi notes that living rooms offer up the most flexibility when it comes to rug size. In smaller living rooms, the Loloi team advises that a 5’x8’ rug that sits 6”-12” in front of the sofa can effectively anchor a space. For slightly larger rooms, the team recommends an 8’x10’ rug that extends beyond the sides of your sofa. In the case of a prolifically large room, the team likes a 9’x13’ rug which is used to frame the whole room and can accommodate all of your furniture piled atop of it.
Bedroom
The most common way to utilize a rug in a bedroom is to tuck it halfway under a bed. Pull it almost up to your nightstands to maximize the soft landing area available to you when rolling out of bed. For a king bed or two twin beds, the Loloi team likes to use a 9’x12’ rug. For a Queen size bed, an 8’x10.’ For a full bed, a 5’x8.’ In smaller bedrooms, the team advocates for using a small accent rug at the foot of the bed or to the side of bed.
Loloi Logic: When in doubt about what size rug to use, size up!
Lead image features Symbology Rug by Justina Blakeney x Loloi. Photo courtesy of Loloi.
