Area Rugs - A Great Way to Accent a Room

Our firm generally recommends hardwood, cement or other overall flooring options to our clients and we usually don't use wall-to-wall carpeting unless it's a "must have" for the client. Having said that, we use a lot of area rugs our design plans.

From a design perspective, area rugs are necessary and they do one thing very well: They define a space. They let the eye know that a particular space is there for a specific purpose. For example, a seating area is a great place for an area rug -- it defines the place in which you are relaxing. We also use them in media rooms, offices and at the foot of a bed as well.Rugs are also a great way to play up color, pattern and texture in your design. Sometimes the only pattern in the plan will show up in the rugs.

As for color, you can contrast with say a sofa or bring out a minor color in artwork by using a well-chosen rug -- we always try to have fun with them and accent something in the room.

Regarding materials, we just choose them based on the overall feel of the room: Raffia/seagrass is good for a natural feel, low industrial pile is great for the modern crowd and a long fuzzy shag might be best for our hipster-type clients looking for a lounge feel. We usually use all natural materials like 100% wool. If you need a need a strong color there will probably be some percentage of nylon in there and that's ok. Onetime we used a 100% suede shag rug for a clinet and he loved it!