Are you looking for ways to incorporate a nice luxurious rug into your living room? Do you want a rug to balance out the hard flooring surface in your living space? If so, then a big part of that is finding the right rug size for your living room.
Doing so can ensure that the entire room ties together. It will make your living room appear more comfortable and intimate while also letting you show off the beautiful flooring material you’ve installed.
There are a lot of factors to consider. See below for a guide on how to find the perfect rug size for any living room.
1. Know the Size of the Room
If you were to start shopping for living room rugs at this very moment, you might be confused by the choices. While you might find a few that you enjoy the look of, the sizes would perplex you.
Many homeowners end up purchasing area rugs for their rooms without knowing the size of the room they intend to place it in.
Doing so can only breed one of two results. They’ll either be returning the rug due to its inefficient size or end up with a rug that’s too big/small for space.
Knowing the size of your living room makes this entire process easier. Expert designers recommend leaving at least two feet of space between the wall and the edge of the rug that you purchase. That is if you intend on buying a large rug.
Using that, you can simply find a rug that’s at least 3 to 4 feet less both the length and width of that room.
For example, an average living room is generally around 12×18 feet. If you’re looking to fill that space with a large rug, then a 9×12 foot (largest average size of rug) could fill the space perfectly.
2. Consider the Layout
Now that we know how the size of the living room affects our rug size decision, let’s dive into another grand detail of this whole shebang: your desired layout.
Most homeowners plan on doing this after they purchase the rug. You can certainly do that, but it’s nice to have at least an idea before investing in the right rug.
For example, if you’re simply looking for a rug that you can place under your coffee table or another conversational piece, then consider round hide rugs. If you want a rug that can provide the perfect balance between hard flooring and comfort, then a large rug is the perfect fit.
Even if you’ve decided on a large rug, your decisions don’t stop there. The size of the large rug affects your layout as well.
The most common sizes of rugs are typically 8×10 and 9×12. If you go with the 9×12, you should be able to fit a large 3-seat sofa and a few other one-seat options. You can even fit a coffee table in there, but it will be tight.
If you’re struggling to make everything fit on the rug perfectly, consider the front-feet approach. That means that all your furniture pieces on the edge of the rug will have their front feet on the rug and their back feet off the rug.
3. The Size of Your Sofa
First, this should be prefaced by saying that you don’t need to have a sofa to make an area rug work in your living room. That said, you’ll need a lot of other furniture pieces to take their place.
For those of you that do have a sofa, it will be your guiding light on the size of rug that you will need.
Generally, interior designers recommend that your rug is—at the very least—8 inches wider than your sofa on either side. You can always so larger if you’d like, but this allows the sofa to sit comfortably on the rug with room to spare.
These days, most people prefer to push their sofas away from the wall. Having that extra space on the rug will allow it to sit pretty on your living room floor.
4. Get a Furniture Count
How many furniture pieces do you really wish to fit on your new rug? The answer to that will help point you towards the right living room area rug size.
As we mentioned earlier, the average rug sizes you’ll find for living rooms are 8×10 feet and 9×12 feet. Once you know how many furniture pieces you want to fit on the rug you purchase, you’ll know which size is better suited for your needs.
Don’t stress about this too much, though. Having some of your furniture pieces off the rug can provide a level of balance to your living room’s aesthetic.
5. Consider the Leg Count
We briefly hinted at it earlier, but we recommend one of three approaches to the living room rug you invest in: all legs, front legs, or coffee table only.
What we mean by that is the leg count that will be graced by the presence of your new living room rug. Do you want all the legs on the rug, only the front legs on the rug, or only the coffee table to be on the rug?
Once you know that, you can find a rug size that fits your living room design comfortably. It will help you achieve the aesthetic you’re looking for.
Find the Right Rug Size for Your Living Room Today
Now that you have seen how to find the rug size to install in your living room, be sure to use this guide effectively.
Start with the first step. Find out the exact dimensions of your living room so that you can invest in a rug size to fit it.
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