Pick the Right Rug and Your Guests Will Be Floored

By Sarah Frink, Brand Publishing Writer

If you're thinking about giving your room a design makeover, the rug is a good place to start. Your choice of rug can help determine the overall theme and color palette for the rest of the room's decor, says Michael Antal, manager of the flooring department at the Naples location of Baer's Furniture, a family-owned chain with 15 stores across Florida.

Antal says the rug can serve as the foundation piece, and you can "pull colors out of the rug" when selecting window treatments, upholstery, and furniture.

Conversely, if you’re not looking to make over your furniture, it does help if your existing pieces are of a neutral palette, says Jamie O’Donnell, an Orlando-based event planner. “Home design is similar to fashion in that you have basic foundation pieces,” O’Donnell says. “If you have sofas in a neutral palette, you have the ability to go with a rug that has a lot of personality. And if you do happen to have a sofa set that is a brighter or bolder color, then I would keep the rug a more neutral color — something that gives the room warmth but isn’t competing with the rest of the decor.”

Choosing colors and patterns can be especially challenging if your home has the increasingly popular open floor plan design. Antal says customers often are overwhelmed when trying to choose rugs for two rooms that are close to one another, and they often resort to selecting the exact same rug for both. This is fine, Antal says, but not necessary.

“What’s important is the color flow,” Antal says. “Are the colors coordinating, speaking to each other? The rugs don’t necessarily have to be the same print or pattern if the colors flow from one room to the next.”

For example, Antal says his design team recently helped a customer choose two rugs for the living and dining rooms. The living room rug had a casual floral pattern, while the dining room rug had a simple custom stripe. There were three main colors that coordinated with each other because the two rugs didn’t have competing patterns.

Another mistake people often make, Antal says, is to choose a rug that’s too small for the room. The size of the rug should be dictated not only by room dimensions, but by ceiling height. If you have high ceilings, you definitely want a larger rug, as one that’s too small can actually make the room look puny. Antal says that customers needn’t worry about covering hardwood floors with too much rug. It’s difficult to cover the majority of the space in a large area. Antal points out that many Florida homes consist of open spaces that flow from one room to the next and feature many sliding doors, and having large area rugs isn’t going to interfere with that.

If it seems overwhelming, you might enlist the help of Baer’s complimentary design services, Antal says. Designers can help narrow these choices, especially when it comes to working within a particular budget. How much you want to spend on your rugs depends on how much you want to spend on the redecorating project as a whole.

When it comes to the rug itself, there are many fabric choices ranging from high-end to budget-friendly. One of the more expensive choices would be hand-knotted, 100 percent New Zealand wool. Any wool fabric does tend to shed more than other fabrics, although higher-grade, finer wool won’t shed as much.

To eliminate shedding altogether, nylon is a good option, and it's a "much more affordable product," ANtal says. Today's nylon is much better in quality, and many manufacturers are even using recycled materials. Antal says nylon is a good choice for customers who don't want to spend as much money, especially if they're snowbirds who live in their Florida home for just a few months a year.

Then there are natural fibers such as jute and sisal, which are “great for casual, tropical, coastal looks,” Antal says. Traditionally, tropical decor has translated into heavy prints with ferns and palm trees. Recently the style has been adapted to incorporate softer colors and designs, and natural fiber rugs are perfect for that look, Antal says.

“When it comes to design, most people don’t care about the rug’s knot count or fiber content,” Antal says. “The main considerations are price, ‘Do the colors work?’ and ‘Is it the right size?’ And that’s what we offer with our design services — to help you find an area rug within your budget that will coordinate nicely with the furniture and the rest of the house.”