If you find yourself staring at a blank space in your home and don’t know where to start, don’t fret! Below is a foolproof plan to create a harmonious interior design for your living room or bedroom.  

When browsing magazines, what is the one element present in almost every living room and bedroom? A rug!  Rugs add softness and warmth, but they can also help you make a statement and—as The Dude said—tie the room together.    

Visually, rugs are grounding elements.  If your sofa and chairs sit fully or partially on the same rug, they feel connected by it.  If the sofa sits on the rug but the chairs stop short of overlapping the rug, things feel disjointed, like the chairs weren’t invited to the party.  Additionally, patterns in rugs can add scale, which breaks up the monotony when you have large pieces, likw sofas and chairs, covered in solid neutral fabrics.  

In the top photo, the rug is a piece of art.  It looks like an abstract painting for your floor. It has blues, oranges and gold tones; it’s stunning.  To make things feel complementary, the same colors were pulled for the chairs and throw pillows.  Additionally, the artwork has similar color and even the vase is playing into the color scheme of the rug.  The rug is the star of this room, and the rest is the supporting cast.  

The photo below is another living room with vibrant paint on the walls. The rug has the wall color and a great pop of orange that is repeated on the chair.  When in doubt—repeat, repeat, repeat.  Additionally, the fabric on the chair grouping is repeated on the pillows on the sofa.  That’s a basic design principle you can easily use to your advantage.

The last photo is a soothing but interesting bedroom.  The yellow is pulled from the rug in the poufs and pillows.  Repetition of color again—voila!

Interior designers are people, too.  We don’t know it all nor do we have a crystal ball—I know this comes as a shock (ha)!  However, we are eager learners and always have our eyes peeled for new technologies and ideas. I bring this up because, as it relates to rugs, there’s a newer fiber being used more and more in rugs and I am not a fan.  I have come to refer to this fiber as the “v” word—viscose.  It’s essentially wood pulp. 

I’ve seen many rugs that are a blend of wool and viscose.  Wool is awesome and easy to clean; viscose is not.  When viscose gets wet, it can turn yellow and ibecome crunchy.  That’s not ideal for a rug, now is it?!  Once the damage is done—say from a glass of wine, a flood or a puppy—there is no going back.  You can hope to get it out with a professional clean, but your beloved (and possibly expensive) rug will never be the same.  So, word to the wise—go forth, show your rugs some love, use them as your inspiration but please, check the tag. 

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