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How do I shop for a rug?


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I need an area rug. It will be for the main area with the sofas/coffee tables. I try to limit the food in there to just non messy light snacks and water. I am clueless as to how to go about this. I have looked at some wool ones for five thousand dollars. I don't have five thousand dollars. I am going to budget for this time wise according to how much I need to spend, so I don't have an exact dollar amount.

 

I don't know where is good, what material etc. I have looked online but just don't know what to look for.

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Here's my favorite recommendation: FLOR carpet squares (http://www.FLOR.com). They're carpet tiles that are about 18" square -- you can attach them underneath with special adhesive pieces the company sends you with your order. The finished rug can be taken apart and the individual tiles washed in the sink or bathtub if part of it gets dirty (or the whole thing can be cleaned with a carpet cleaning machine).

 

What's great is that you can choose from a huge variety of colors, textures, and styles. I have a large FLOR rug in my front hallway which I designed in soft green and pale yellow. The rug under my kitchen table is made up of cream, cranberry, and light blue squares. I just chose my colors, counted up how many squares I'd need, and placed my order.

 

FLOR often has free shipping or 15% off specials.

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Here's my favorite recommendation: FLOR carpet squares (www.FLOR.com). They're carpet tiles that are about 18" square -- you can attach them underneath with special adhesive pieces the company sends you with your order. The finished rug can be taken apart and the individual tiles washed in the sink or bathtub if part of it gets dirty (or the whole thing can be cleaned with a carpet cleaning machine).

 

What's great is that you can choose from a huge variety of colors, textures, and styles. I have a large FLOR rug in my front hallway which I designed in soft green and pale yellow. The rug under my kitchen table is made up of cream, cranberry, and light blue squares. I just chose my colors, counted up how many squares I'd need, and placed my order.

 

FLOR often has free shipping or 15% off specials.

 

I've seen those, but I have carpet. I plan to get rid of the carpet in a year or two, but I'll still need a rug.

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What I meant was that the carpet tiles make up a rug. You can buy as few or as many as you want to get the size you want. The FLOR rug I have in my (current) front hallway is about 6' x 10'. When we move next month, I will take up the tiles and rearrange them in my new front hallway to make a different size and shape of rug.

 

The sides of the tiles are neatly finished so that they won't fray or anything.

 

Sorry I didn't make that more clear.

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Do you know what style you want?

 

Pottery Barn has beautiful rugs. Looking at their site might give you some ideas of what you might like.

 

Make sure you look up the design rules about rug sizes. Many people purchase rugs that are too small for their room size. They always look much larger in the stores.

 

This website is also good for seeing a variety of styles:

 

 

http://www.liveauctioneers.com

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I have been shopping for an area rug for 7 months now, and I still haven't found one I like.

 

Target and Home Depot sell area rugs. HD owns http://homedecorators.com/, from which you can buy rugs (some aren't in the stores). TJ Maxx and Home Goods sell rugs, too. CB2, Crate and Barrel, and Pottery Barn also sell rugs. I read that Marshall's does, too, but I haven't been there.

 

Overstock sells rugs. http://overstock.com/ . The things I like about Overstock is that their prices are generally good, they have consumer reviews for plenty of rugs on their site, and they tell you the thickness of the rug. Reading reviews is fine, but you are relying on the quality of reviewer's expertise and taste, too.

 

IMO, rug pile height is related to comfort. My family likes wool rugs that are at least .5 inches thick.

 

Rugs are made of various materials, including natural fiber rugs (jute, sea grass, sisal), cotton, polypropylene (olefin), bamboo, plastic, rubber, wool, wool-blend, and wool and silk.

 

I recently bought a 9 x 12 sea grass rug from Pottery Barn. They are easy to clean (but hard on the feet - we are moving it to the dining room). Well, the dog threw up on it six times the first week we had it. It is easy to clean if it is smaller -- one can just rinse it off with the hose, which is a lot harder to achieve when the rug is so large. Its bumpy texture makes it hard to clean the traditional way.

 

Rugs have several weave types: flat, hand hooked, hand knotted, hand tufted, machine made, woven, braided, shag.

 

Rugs come in a variety of sizes, colors, styles and patterns. If you go to Overstock, you can see examples of each and read reviews -- their rug menu is extensive and you can select from many categories.

 

Buying rugs online poses a problem because the photographs of the rugs do not portray their colors properly on computer monitors. You have to read the reviews to find out what the actual colors are, and whether the rugs are of decent quality. I have seen the exact same rug on different sites appear to have different colors. Often, if Overstock has several photos of a rug, the colors of the rug differ by photo. A lot of sites have standard photos of the rugs, which are supplied by the brand and do not reflect the actual colors of the rugs. OTOH, I have bought 2 rugs from Pottery Barn and the online photos accurately depicted the rug color.

 

If you buy a rug online, make sure you find out what the store's return policy is first.

 

The Home Goods site has an article entitled Everything You Need To Know About How to Buy a Rug: http://www.homegoods.com/rugs/. If you Google how to buy a rug, there are many sites that have more extensive information.

 

I looked at area rugs on Houzz, and every single one I loved turned out to be custom made. Now I use Houzz just to look at rugs in a room setting -- how do tan sofas look with a black and white rug, how does a trellis pattern rug look in a room, and so forth.

 

One thing I discovered is that a single supplier will import rugs from China. They are then sold by various companies, and the same rug will have a different brand names. Sometimes one company sells the same rug under several brand names. This makes it difficult to compare prices. Even at Overstock, the exact same rug in different sizes will be named differently.

 

Also, there are a lot of knock-off rugs out there. If you find a rug that costs $5,000 and then locate the exact same rug for $1,000 elsewhere, be wary. It may not be the same rug in terms of quality. OTOH, it may be the exact same rug. Rug quality varies within a brand, too.

 

One more thing - if you buy a Pottery Barn rug, I would suggest you buy it directly from Pottery Barn. They had a problem (since reportedly solved) of rugs that smelled horrible (from their latex backing, IIRC) ... and that is why I won't buy a new rug from PB on eBay, even if the prices are better. I don't want to take the risk that I am getting a smelly rug.

Edited by RoughCollie
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