Last Tuesday, I stubbed my toe on the corner of my bedframe – yet again. Not because I am clumsy (we’ll leave that one up for debate), but because my small bedroom was beginning to resemble something out of a furniture maze throwdown. Things were so cramped I went months only having hardwood floors – and when I added a rug I thought it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. When my sister visited, the first thing she said stepping into my room was “why does this room feel so… cold?” She wasn’t talking about the temperature – I was fully heated and my radiator was going strong that February day. She was talking about how my room felt.
Without a rug to soften up some of hard surfaces, my bedroom had become something that felt temporary – more hotel room than lived-in space. Weekends were spent pouring over carpet stores looking at vast expanses of area rugs that would swallow up my floor space.
The sales lady kept insisting that I needed an 8×10 rug – which was half the size of my room and cost half my rent. “You need something big to anchor this space,” she explained while eyeballing my hastily drawn floor plan.
I nodded thoughtfully while secretly calculating what percentage of my floor I would actually be left with. Spoiler – it wasn’t much. One thing I learned over many months of bedroom rug trials and tribulations, is that size does matter – but not in the way you think.
Yes, you need to pick a rug big enough to fill out your room. You don’t want an itty bitty rug looking silly underneath your bed. However, a rug that is so large it has to wrap itself around your furniture like a belt is also unnecessary.
Small(ish) rugs can – and do – work in even the tiniest bedrooms when placed correctly. I started by purchasing a rug that was only 4×6 feet and laying it perpendicular to my bed. This allowed the rug to drift about 18” out from both sides of my bed.
I’ll never forget waking up that first morning and stepping out of bed onto a rug rather than hardwood floors. I got it. When your feet hit that soft carpet in the morning, rather than the cold wood floor – it can change your whole mood.
It was welcoming versus waking up to assault. Finding the perfect spot for my rug took some trial and error though. Initially, I centred it in the room with it’s longest part directly under the foot of my bed.
On paper this seemed like a great plan, symmetrically balanced and all. But since the rug didn’t span the entirety of my room, I was still left navigating off the rug when getting out of bed. Cue headache.
After stubbing my toe on the corner of said rug (at least it wasn’t wood!) I slid it out so that roughly two-thirds of the rug extended from the end of my bed. Problem solved. Picking the rug pattern was another beast entirely.
I wanted that expensive-looking plush Persian rug with all over flowers and jewel-toned colours. I thought it would elevate my otherwise blah bedroom that was furnished with cheap-but-comfortable IKEA items. What I didn’t realise was how much that rug would overpower the room.
Once it was unfurled in my petite bedroom, it swallowed up everything else. Instead of acting as a base to accentuate everything else; it stuck out like a sore thumb and made all of my other decor invisible. Returning it was probably one of the best decisions I’ven made (kidding…but seriously, thank God for return policies).
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I ended up going with something I originally thought was boring. A basic hand-tufted wool rug in warm taupe. But it was that slight texture variation that made all of the difference.
Instead of competing with my furniture, bedding, art work, etc… it grounded the room and allowed each piece to shine. Suddenly my deep blue comforter looked more intentional; my wood night stands appeared warmer; and even my piles of junk on the ground looked curated rather than messy. Speaking of texture, rug texture is more important than you may realise at first glance.
That lovely taupe rug I got? Flat weave. It was beautiful, but not super comfortable to walk on and a pain to clean.
Sure, after about 8 months of wear (don’t judge – I should have used a rug pad) it held up fine, but showed a lot of wear. I recently switched to a low-pile wool rug which gives just enough give when you step on it. Not only does your feet enjoy the softer texture, but so does the vibe of the room.
It suddenly feels like your floors have been softened. On the subject of rug pads – please don’t skimp on small spaces. I thought I was being cheap by forgoing that extra purchase.
What I didn’t realise at the time was how annoying it was to watch my rug shift every time I made my bed. A good rug pad not only keeps your rug securely in place but provides enough cushion so your rug feels more luxurious without taking up any extra space. Lesson learned about rug maintenance came about 8 months after I purchased my new rug.
Let’s just say I accidentally dumped an entire cup of coffee grounds onto my rug. Before I began living by my new coffee-rule (“no open containers until I’m upright and coherent”) I was literally running around my flat half asleep. As I was frantically googling how to get coffee stains out of wool rugs, I learned that I should have been thinking of maintenance along with aesthetics when choosing my rug.
While that stain may never fully dissipate, it did teach me to look at how I LIVE when buying home goods rather than how they’ll LOOK when Life is perfect. As far as my rug goes now, I opted for something smaller – about 3×5 in a darker shade with a simple geometric pattern. It’s placed such that when I exit my bed I’m stepping on the rug – but doesn’t hang over too far to get in the way of my drawers or walking around my room.
The geometric design also camouflages stains 😉 And we all know those are inevitable. The darker shade also helped anchor the room without darkening it.
That cozy feeling you get when you step onto your rug in the morning isn’t just physical.
That blanket of warmth has a psychological benefit as well. It’s like the final piece of the puzzle that completes a room. Similar to the difference between just getting dressed versus adding those final touches that aren’t necessarily needed, but full rounds out your entire look.
So you may be thinking – rug aren’t cheap, you just threw out thousands of dollars replacing rugs! While that’s true what I learned by spring is that you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to get a rug that both looks great and lasts. My current rug was only around £85 and is holding up MUCH better than that pricey rug from before.
Remember, simple works WAY better in small spaces since everything needs to justify taking up space. Fast forward to when my sister came to visit again, about 3 months later. “Wow. This room feels so much more you.” And just like that – she walked right over it.
You know you’ve made the right choice when improvements can be felt, not seen. When the room works without being distracting.
