How to place area rugs in your bedroom

If you think your bedroom feels bare and cold in its current state, fear not: the ultimate solution might be right under your feet. Simple though it may sound, placing an area rug on your bedroom floor goes a long way towards bringing a sense of warmth and cosiness to the room. They help you to relax and unwind in the evenings, and foster a homely atmosphere in which to wake up in the mornings. Not to mention, in bedrooms with hardwood floors, area rugs are able to provide both effective insulation and a more inviting texture underfoot – admit it, there’s nothing better than rolling out of bed and stepping directly onto a soft bedside rug!

But how should you go about placing an area rug in your bedroom? And where in the room should you place it for the best effect? There are no right or wrong answers here, only generally accepted rules of thumb that you ought to be aware of. So in this post, we’re going to point you in the right direction by outlining the basics of bedroom area rug placement.

 

Placement

Area rugs are an incredibly popular facet of bedroom design that add a great deal of cohesion to your space, bringing the room together and balancing out the furniture within it. Conventional wisdom dictates that area rugs should run underneath all the central pieces of furniture in any room. Given that the central feature of the bedroom is, well, the bed, the most logical placement for an area rug is underneath the bed. There are three main ways of doing this:

• Placing the rug under the entirety of your bed, with all four legs of the bed and your bedside tables resting on top of the rug.
• Placing the rug under the majority of the bed, with the upper edge of the rug sitting just below the legs of your bedside tables but not underneath them.
• Placing the rug under the lower third of your bed, with only the bottom legs of the bed on top of the rug and most of the rug being visible below the foot of the bed.

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list of arrangements and you should be willing to experiment with different placements in order to figure out what works best for your bedroom.

 

Balance and proportion

In any case, the rug should be extending out from the sides of the bed by around 12 inches for a single bed, and around 6 inches more for a double bed. To ensure balance and symmetry, make sure that the rug is visibly the same length on both sides of the bed. The length of rug extending beyond the foot of your bed will vary depending on how you choose to place it, but you should be aiming to show as much rug as you possibly can (at least a quarter of its length). Any smaller than these rough measurements and your area rug will be overpowered and dwarfed by the bed, making it look out of place.

On the other hand, you don’t want to be covering your entire floor with the rug, as your bedroom needs that space to breathe. Besides, the appeal of having an area rug is being able to contrast the rug with the original floor, so having gaps is fine as long as they’re attractive and in proportion. This isn’t an exact science, but generally speaking there should be a decent amount of space between the rug’s edges and their adjacent walls: somewhere between 8 and 24 inches is preferable. Remember, your rug should look centred and balanced – it should respond to the contours of your furniture, not fight against them.

 

Size

The kind of area rug placement that you can achieve depends both on the size of your room, the size of your bed, and the size of the rug itself. By carefully weighing up each factor, it should become obvious to you which would look best in your bedroom. Ultimately, a lot comes down to common sense: an area rug that corresponds to the dimensions of your room will fit in a lot better; a larger rug will look cramped in a smaller room and disproportionate under a single bed; and a smaller rug under a large bed will make the entire room look smaller and clash with the surrounding furniture. Trust your gut as experiment with different arrangements – if something feels wrong about a particular placement, move on and try another.

 

Here at Hudson Flooring, we create beautiful bespoke rugs in many different shapes, materials, sizes, and edgings – perfect for a truly personalised addition to your home. For more expert advice, get in touch with a member of our team.