Something I didn’t realize when we were buying the house and we had so many rooms to design and furnish was just how much time I’d spend thinking about and researching rugs. And here I am again, more than a year and a half later, still thinking about and researching rugs. Because, as I’ve come to realize, rugs make a room.

You can have a statement couch, a beautiful piece of art, to-die-for window treatments, the kind of coffee table or other piece of furniture that draws your eye. But while any or all of that is happening, it’s the rug that is grounding the room and tying everything together both geographically (all of the furniture in a room or part of the room is probably touching that rug) and visually since the rug signifies that everything in that room or section of the room belongs together.

I love a rug. I love having something soft and warm to put my feet on when I get up from a couch or bed or to rest my feet on when I’m in a seat. But there is one thing I hate about rugs: they are so EXPENSIVE!!! And the larger the rug, the exponentially more expensive it is, which drives me crazy. I  mean, EXPONENTIALLY more. I’m sure there is a lot of technique and skill and quality material that goes into a good rug, but, man oh man am I not a fan of shelling out so much money for one, especially because I require so many!

We don’t even have that many rooms! We’ve added rugs to the living room, dining room, master bedroom (two actually), office and both bathrooms. We’ve also created two different outdoor spaces with rugs. This time the brain power is being used to pick out a rug for the guest bedroom, which is also my studio where I sew. We are starting with a blank canvas in this room since the only things we have done to it are clear it out and paint it white. Once the guest room is done, I will blog about that.

For now I’ll say that I’m in the middle of choosing size, pile, texture/material, pattern and color. Because those are all the decisions that have to be made. So many decisions all for one thing!

When it comes to rugs, size matters. A few pointers I’ve read over the years:

• Rugs should fit the configuration of the room and furniture.
• Arrange furniture on rugs into conversation areas so that at least the front third of the furniture sits on the rug.
• Even if there is more than one conversation area in the room, provide each with its own rug. And the rugs don’t have to match, but should be tied together with color or design.

I  haven’t actually followed all of these rules every time, but they are good to know.

For our living room, we wanted a rug that would reflect the personality that we were going for in that space, which is a fun and happy vibe. The rug we chose by Safavieh is a proper shag rug, off white, with a funky triangle pattern in charcoal. The colors are a neutral complement to the colorful room and the pattern pops and helps complete the space. This rug I bought on sale on Wayfair (I think, don’t remember) after a year of searching for the perfect living room rug.

For the dining room, we wanted a rug that would help achieve the dual look of the room, half dining area, half sitting area. The room is painted two colors of gray with a lot of wood furniture and two blue chairs. We thought a runner would work well to separate the two sides of the room, and found this blue and white ombre one from West Elm to complement the colors in the room. This rug we also bought on sale.

The office has an Amazonian look to it, which just makes me think of jute or sisal, natural fiber rugs that usually come in a variety of tans and camels. After scouring the internet and every rug section of every store I’d been to, I finally found a jute rug on sale at Target that fit the space.

Funny enough, the master bedroom, which has two rugs, has been given the least amount of thought. When we first moved into the house, I really wanted a rug in the living room immediately. I cannot relax on my couch without a rug. And I also like to lie and even fall asleep on a rug every once in a while, especially if that room gets great sunlight, like a cat. I have long been a fan of IKEA’s large-ish round area rugs. They are inexpensive and, because they come in a few colors and piles, can work in a variety of rooms. I bought the off white one knowing that the color and size would work in any other room in the house once we finally found the perfect rug for our living room. A year later when that finally happened, we moved that IKEA rug to our master bedroom. Because of the size and configuration of the room, it doesn’t make sense to have one large (and ridiculously expensive) rug, so this one covers the largest expanse of floor when you first walk into the room.

But what about my little toesies?? I sleep on the side of the bed farther away from the rug so I needed to get something smaller for the sliver of space between the bed and the wall. Back to IKEA I went to get a super budget, small, faux sheepskin rug that is super soft and in the color scheme of the room.

So now it’s all about the perfect rug that defines the space in the flex guest room/studio. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion to this epic rug saga.

One view of shelving in the dining room.