. , and it can set the atmosphere for a room, bringing style, texture and comfort underfoot. Get it wrong, and it can kill the mood.
“It’s hard to get a great room if your floor is inferior,” says , who has just launched a colourful new collection with rug brand . His advice, if you are planning to redecorate, is not to buy a rug as an afterthought, but to buy it first and use it as a starting point on which to build a decorative scheme: “It’s hard to add a rug in later on,” he says. “I would buy a rug specifically to take markers from the colours or the pattern, and use that to build up the rest of the room.
” According to the experts, there are three common mistakes that people make when buying rugs. Here’s how to avoid them, and what to do instead. Most interior designers agree that the number-one mistake they most often see when it comes to rugs is one that is too small for the room, which can have the effect of making the room itself look small too.
“It just looks a bit mean,” says Williamson. His advice is to go as big as your budget will allow. “You want to treat it like a floor cover if you can, and just leave a few inches of flooring between the rug and the wall.
I’ve never gone into a room and thought, ‘This rug is too big.’” Interior designer Alice Crawley, whose new collection of rugs is available from , agrees: “One of the most common mistakes people make when purchasing a rug is choosing the wrong size,” she says. “A rug shou.