3 Tips for Styling a Room Around an Antique Rug
A beautiful antique rug will bring charm and elegance to any living space. By following a few simple tips for properly placing your fine Persian or Oriental rug, you can truly make it the masterpiece of your home.
Arrange Your Rug to Fit Your Space
Oversized rugs truly invigorate large spaces. If you are styling a large living room, bedroom, or dining room, don’t be afraid to make complete use of the space with a richly textured palatial rug.
If you have the space, use it!
There are a few simple rules of thumb for placing furniture around a rug of any size. For instance, if you are dressing up a smaller living room with an area rug, it is best to keep all legs of the furniture off of the rug, positioning your couch, love seat, and armchairs along its edges. If you are working with the classic bold prints of a Persian or Oriental rug, this is particularly effective and making it pop.
The bigger the rug, the more of your furniture you can sneak onto it. An 8’ x 10’ rug, for example, can handle having the front legs of your furniture teasing the edges of it, while you can feel free to fully place your furniture onto anything in the range of 9’ x 12’ and beyond.
Use Colors That Compliment Your Antique Rug
Persian rugs are particularly notorious for their deeply rich red and blue hues. The best way to accentuate these gorgeous colors is to pair them against a neutral background.
While white, cream, or sandy-toned furniture and walls work best to highlight the rich coloring in Persian rugs, it isn’t unheard of to coordinate your antique rug with complementary colors.
An easy way of doing this is to pick out an anchor color from the rug and use it to accent your room with items to match. Throw pillows are great for this.
Vibrant reds work well with a complimenting robin’s egg blue, but if your Persian rug is in a more subdued shade, remember that dusty tones work really well with a muted rug. Dark teal accents carry a rose or cream-shaded rug beautifully.
Pair Patterns with Your Oriental or Persian Rug
Despite what we just said about pairing neutral colors with your bold rugs, it is possible to match patterned accents with an intricate Oriental or Persian rug. The trick is to avoid pattern overload by choosing the right patterns and properly arranging them.
An Oriental rug, after all, is an heirloom piece that you’ll want to keep for decades. Not something that you toss out when you decide to redecorate.
Learning how to redecorate around your signature rugs is the key to avoiding palette fatigue and holding onto your beautiful Oriental rug for years to come.
First off, when choosing to pair patterns you want to keep them in the same color family. Layering different shades of blue with a blue-accented Oriental rug, for example, is one way to tie in different patterns without creating overwhelm.
Contrasting colors will coordinate well if you keep scale in mind. A large pattern on your antique rug will work well with a smaller pattern displayed on your accent furniture. Pairing contrasting patterns in this way will actually bring a bold energy into any room.
Finally, don’t shy away from whimsy. Classic designs will work with any Persian or Oriental rug, bringing with it a traditional charm that most people can find comfort in.
Have you been aching to bring a rich Persian or Oriental rug into your home and you just don’t know where to start with incorporating it into your aesthetic? Do you have a large space that could be warmed up with a beautiful palace-size rug?
Serving New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, our selection covers a wide range of large rugs, including 12’x 22’ antique rugs big enough to brighten any large space. Call the Saatchi Rug Gallery today to book a viewing and see how we can bring some classic bold textures into your home. 516-510-9188
Your Space Needs a Bigger Rug – And This is Why
Have you ever wondered why a fully furnished room can feel so unfinished sometimes? Trying not to overcrowd a living space by picking an area rug barely bigger than a postage stamp can have you missing out by thinking small. In fact, a statement-making Persian rug might be just what you need to tie your palace together.
When it comes to finishing a living room, bedroom, or dining room, there are as many practical reasons to choose an antique rug as there are aesthetic ones.
Bring Life and Luxury to Your Living Space
An oversized leather sofa and ultra-modern pedestal coffee table are exceptionally stylish on their own. Placed together in your living room, however, they might feel mismatched without a stylish yet cozy oversized rug to bring them together.
A wall-to-wall Oriental rug, with its rich colors and classic design, will breathe life into any understated space. This is particularly true with living areas that have been decorated in neutral undertones. Nothing dresses up a drab floor like an ornate antique rug.
If you have been wondering how to luxe up your home, the first thing you should consider is adding a touch of decadence to the space below your feet with a plush palace-sized rug.
Zone Out Your Open Space with an Oversized Rug
Open concept living spaces sky-rocketed into popularity a few years ago and have shown no sign of falling out of interest since. The downside to these big and beautiful open spaces is that they can lack a distinction between your living room, your dining room, and sometimes even your kitchen.
An oversized rug is a perfect way to distinguish your eating space from your lounging space while providing vital protection to your floors from rogue chair legs hell-bent on providing damage.
Larger living rooms can easily be made more intimate with creatively-placed area rugs that create cozy nooks for late-night conversations. If you have a big space that could benefit from a bit of breaking up, a large rug in an eye-catching pattern might just be the solution that you’ve been looking for.
Protect Your Floors While You Spruce Them Up
If you have been looking for ways to give your living space a makeover that won’t break the bank, an oversized rug should be your first investment.
Life likes to bring us a new surprise at every turn. Maybe you bought a house full of brilliant white carpets before kids came along and now you need something that you don’t need to steam clean on a daily basis just to fight off inevitable stains.
Rather than spending hours of your time and thousands of your hard-earned dollars to switch out your carpets for something more kid-friendly, try opting for an oversized rug that can handle your day-to-day life. Covering your carpet saves you the hassle of replacing it while giving you the option to bring it back when there is less mud and Kool-Aid making its way across your floors.
Do you like the look of wood flooring as well as wall-to-wall rugs? The right style of oversized rug can accent your space while letting your classic honey-colored floorboards peek out around it. Get the best of both worlds.
Do you think a palace-sized rug might be right for your living space? Book an appointment today to see our vast collection of oversized antique rugs in a wide range of designs. Serving New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Call us today! 516-510-9188
Organic Rugs Vs. Non-Organic Rugs – What’s the Difference?
Plenty of companies have been going the extra mile to be completely transparent about what goes into the making of their rugs. Along with that, “organic” has become so much more than a buzz word.
More and more people have become conscious of the chemicals that they’re consuming in their day to day lives, and rug manufacturers have picked up on that, creating a movement toward natural, toxin-free products and processes.
What Makes a Rug Toxic?
In order to understand what makes a rug organic, you have to first know what makes a rug non-organic.
The toxicity of a rug is determined by the types of materials that go into the making of it, as well as the products used in the process of putting it together.
If you are taking a holistic approach to decorating your home, you will want to avoid rugs that contain materials like polypropylene (aka olefin or polyolefin), nylon, and polyester. Synthetic materials aren’t necessarily harmful, but the chemicals used to process them can transfer to the skin, depending on how the rug was produced.
Speaking of chemicals, anything that is treated to be flame-retardant, moth-repellent, or stain and water-repellent runs the risk of being very toxic. Anything used to repel insects is classified as a pesticide, which is incredibly dangerous to bring into your home. Stain and water-repellent treatments also contain perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, that have been known to enter the bloodstream and have been found in human breast milk.
When exploring the physical composition of any rug that you intend to bring into your home, keep in mind that the synthetic rubber backing on all slide-proof rugs can contain endocrine-disrupting ingredients and that the formaldehyde used in the adhesive to attach is a probable carcinogen known to cause ear, nose, and throat irritation.
How to Choose an Organic Rug
Now that you know what not to buy, it’s time to take a look at what you should be prioritizing when choosing an organic rug that’s both safe and beautiful.
Your first step will be to look at rugs with a natural composition. Natural fibers like cotton, wool, jute, and sisal are your best bet, but you might want to dig a little deeper and find out how they are sourced as well.
If they aren’t properly sourced, even natural materials can be problematic. Sustainably sourced materials will be free of pesticides and other chemicals, while others may not be.
Look for rugs that haven’t been surface treated in order to keep the toxicity levels in your home on the low end, and check for low-impact dyes. Many rug manufacturers use toxic, high-impact dyes to add vibrant, eye-catching hues to their fibers.
Keep a particularly close eye on wool rugs. While these are a beautiful, natural option, wool’s natural resistance to stains also makes it difficult to color naturally. Be sure to check out manufacturers that use vegetable dyes on their rugs and you should be in the clear.
Organic Rug Cleaning
Once you have brought the perfect, toxin-free, organic rug into your home, you will need to put some work into keeping it that way.
In order to maintain your rug’s pristine condition and avoid piling or excessive wear, start by turning off the brush roll on your vacuum. For the most part, the “hardwood” setting is all you will need to keep your rugs dirt and debris free. Having your guests remove their shoes at your front door will serve double duty by helping to keep environmental toxins from coming into your home and reduce the amount of dirt being tracked onto your beautiful organic rugs.
Regular cleanings will compensate for not having your rugs moth and insect treated. Stock up on some natural, chemical-free cleaners and aim to clean your high-traffic rugs every three to six months. To ensure that you get the most life out of your rugs, hire a professional cleaner that specializes in organic rug cleaning to give them a deep-dive twice a year.
Lingering questions about organic rugs or the organic rug cleaning service offered by Saatchi Rug Gallery? We are happy to answer any question that you have, give us a call today. 516-510-9188
