Rugs

It occurred to me that I never updated about the new rugs we bought earlier in the year. As you know, we have a long room that is our living and dining room. I divide the space using a chair and the rug centers the couch/living space. For so long I've used a 5x7 until one day I was looking at pictures and thought "why do we have a teeny tiny rug in this huge space?"  Suddenly I realized it looked so small and wrong! Was I blind before?

Anyway, we had a $500 budget for an 8x10 rug. I knew I was going to have to be creative on this one. All the big box stores had patterns that didn't really match our colors. Or they were too contemporary in design for me to like long term. The designer stores were too expensive. I finally found (thanks to my friend Cecelia) a discount shop in West Columbia (Doug's Rugs). Low and behold! They had what I needed for under my budget.

So home I came with two babies, a double stroller and two 8x10 rugs. Wish I had taken time to actually snap a shot of my car. A little comical to say the least. Here are close-ups of the patterns. Both had more traditional feel since that's what I currently have throughout my house, and both had the pumpkin orange/rust colors. And of course the most important, a heavy pattern so dog hair and juice spills or other toddler stains wouldn't be easily seen.

Here is a before of the living room...

And here's the after.

So much better! Now the space looks better grounded and in proportion. We went with the lighter rug in the living room since once we saw it in the natural light, it looked lighter and better with our current furniture.

What to do with the other rug? Return it? That would have been the financially responsible thing to do. But since it was still just a smidge over my total budget, I decided to try it in the back multi-purpose room (AKA man room/office/guest room).

Before...a tiny island of a rug.

And after...what feels like a larger room!

So if I have to offer any advice:

• always add rugs to hardwood floors - it softens the room
• consider adding rugs over carpet if you need an anchor for the room
• ALWAYS look at scale. You can see how much difference a larger rug made in our space.

Anyone else bought a rug way too small? Any other good sources for rugs in SC you want to share?