Contemporary Rugs Can Transform a Room

Home
>
Interior Design & Decorating
>
Contemporary Rugs Can Transform a Room

Contemporary Rugs Can Transform a Room

When tackling a do-it-yourself home decorating project, you can use rugs as a relatively inexpensive means of enhancing or transforming a room. There are practical considerations in how to use rugs to advantage, and how to get good value for your money. The purchase of contemporary rugs for one or more areas of your home can make a significant contribution to the beauty and comfort of its interior.

When you use rugs to decorate a room, it is important to assess what you are trying to accomplish: for instance, two or more rugs can visually separate the various living areas of a room, while a single rug can unifying the room into one spatial flow. As well as deciding on the number and size of rugs you need, it is also important that you choose a rug or rugs that will be compatible with other colors and patterns in the room. You must also consider the quality of the rug and the potential traffic to which it will be subjected so that you chose one that can be maintained for many years.

What are the Advantages of Using Area Rugs?

A benefit of decorating with rugs is that one rug can serve many different functions over time, and will, therefore, provide good value for your money. A contemporary modern rug can hang on the wall as a piece of art work, be moved later to a floor in the family room, kitchen, bathroom, or even a baby room, and end its life on the basement floor. If you move to another house, you can take the rug with you. Rugs can also preserve the beauty and life of your wall-to-wall carpeting or your hardwood floor when placed strategically in high traffic areas, and can be used to warm up both the appearance and the feel of tile, stone, and concrete. Rugs can be used to mute sounds and add a dramatic splash of color to an otherwise bland room.

What Are You Trying to Accomplish?

If you want a rug to be the focal point of a room, the color and patterns should be bold and bright. If you are selecting a contemporary area rug for a room with existing decorating elements, you should repeat either the dominant or the accent colors already in place. You should also consider the rug pattern so that you don't choose one that clashes with the pattern of another fabric in the room. If neutral colors have been chosen for the walls, curtains, and furniture, you can use a rug to add visual impact by choosing a strong pattern in a bright color like red or royal blue. In general, rugs should not have a busy design if the colors and patterns of the room already make it appear very busy.

Instead of using a rug as the focal point of a room, you can choose one that defines a conversational or work area instead. You can also select more than one rug order to break up a room into different areas. When more than one rug is used in the same room or they are placed in such a way that they can be seen together, they need not be identical but the colors and designs should be harmonious.

You may decide to use a rug to preserve a hardwood floor or wall-to-wall carpeting in an area that has a lot of heavy traffic. If that is the case, it is a good idea to select a rug with a detailed pattern and a dark color that won't show dirt easily, and is of good quality. If a rug is needed for a room in which small children or pets play, you might consider purchasing several small rugs that can be cleaned by throwing them in the washer and dryer.

What Size Do You Need?

Choose a rug that is proportional to the floor space in the room. If the rug is the focal point, there should be an equal amount of bare floor around it on all sides, even if the room is irregular in shape or there is, say, a fireplace that projects into the room. If you can't manage that, at least have an equal amount of bare floor exposed on two parallel sides of the rug. The rug should be large enough to unify the furniture by extending under all or part of most items that are placed in the central area.

If you are using more than one rug to define two or more areas of the room, the rugs should be under at least the front legs of each item in the selected areas. If it is a rug for an eating area that is part of a larger room, choose a rug that is big enough to extend beyond the table by eighteen to twenty-four inches. If the rug is in a bedroom, it doesn't need to be centered if the bed is not centered in the room. Instead, the rug should be situated so that the most visible exposed floor spaces on three sides of the rug are identical in size. When placing your furniture on a rug in any room, there should not be more than two feet of empty rug extending beyond the furniture groupings.

To help decide what size of rug you need, use masking tape to mark the four corners of the area you plan to cover. If you still have trouble visualizing the effect, you can cut pieces from a paper roll to cover the area.

Why Choose a Contemporary Style?

Contemporary rugs feature unlimited choices of color and design, and lessen the need to add a lot of other decorating elements to a room. Contemporary rugs are not only suitable for a modern home, they can also create dramatic appeal in a more traditional home. You can purchase affordable rugs on a limited budget if you shop carefully. Discount outlets and sale prices can lower the cost of adding one or more rugs to your home. The better quality rugs are, in general, easier to maintain and will last longer than their cheaper counterparts.

The cost of a rug is closely tied to the fiber from which it is made. Wool is the most expensive and most durable fiber, and is soft and easy to clean. Wool provides the standard by which all other fibers are judged. Cotton and jute are softer than wool, but not as durable, and jute won't stand up under prolonged exposure to sunlight or moisture. Sisal is strong and durable, as well as colorfast and static-free. Synthetic fibers include the tough and durable acrylic; the stain-resistant, water-repellent, inexpensive polypropylene, or olefin; and the durable, easy to clean and maintain nylon.

Whether the rugs you choose are made of expensive wool or a cheaper synthetic fiber, they can add beauty to your home, and comfort under foot. Contemporary rugs are artwork for the floor, and when chosen well can add that magical decorating touch we all love.

Scott Gray is currently a freelance writer and enjoys providing tips to consumers who are in the market for all types of cheap area rugs, contemporary rugs and oriental rugs

In The News:

New and now country
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
What she got is a home with classic good bones, a relaxing “put-your-feet-up” attitude and the “new country” style touches she loves. With two young daughters, a husband who loves golfing and a yellow Labrador retriever, it's an active household where ...

Workshop will focus on staging your home to sell
Gettysburg Times
Victoria Manton, ASP, IAHSP, of Victorias-Stage, York, will share proven techniques she's learned from her years spent in fashion, retail merchandising, and office and interior design. According to Manton, home staging is a marketing tool that's more ...

and more »

Free Workshops in Interior Design
Santa Barbara Independent
In addition to event planning, the company will offer Professional Organization, Interior Design and Feng Shui Design. Ms. King is a recent graduate of the Sheffield School of Interior Design and has over thirty years of event planning experience.

whathouse.co.uk
Decorating your new home – Sofa beds
whathouse.co.uk
Here are just a few of them: If you found the perfect sofa bed for your home, you should clean and maintain its new look as long as possible. Sofa beds are usually made from fabrics, genuine or ecologic leather or a combination of leather and fabrics.

Trad fusion: Collaboration forges shift from traditional to contemporary design
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
The collaboration between Parker and the homeowner has forged a friendship — and a home in a design style the Interior Chic design firm owner describes as “transitional.” It's the fusion of traditional with contemporary or modern elements.

Portland Interior Designer's Foursquare Redecoration: A Study In How To Design ...
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Portland interior designer's space planning, furniture design, and interior décor take a neglected Portland Foursquare home and transform it into a model of family-friendly interior design. Portland, Oregon (PRWEB) May 21, 2012 Portland Interior ...

and more »

Mascoutah couple built 'green' from ground up
STLtoday.com
Construction on the home began in 2008; from the basement to the roof it is made with Insulated Concrete Forms. The exterior is brick veneer, and the interior is textured plaster. Jay lays claim to "75 percent of the design," drawing plans and having a ...

Decorating Den Interiors: The wonder of Mother Nature
Chambersburg Public Opinion
In the last column, I discussed bringing our interior comforts outside. On the other side of the spectrum, there is continued interest to bring a little bit of the outdoors inside. Our increased awareness of the environment and the quest to preserve ...

Award Winning Interior Designer Lori Gilder Named New eHow Home Design Expert
PR Web (press release)
Award winning interior designer Lori Gilder was recently selected as a home design expert for eHow.com. Gilder will share her design expertise through a series of videos on the popular online network. Now offering her invaluable design advice across ...

and more »

Coffee, tea, table?
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
Kathy Flack, ASID, of Flack Interior Design Associates, a division of Simpson Furniture. Once the repository of drinks and remote controls (and your feet when your mom wasn't looking), the coffee table has renewed function.

Google News