Area Rugs Blog

Area Rugs Come in Many Sizes. Things You Need to Consider.

The size of an area rug is one the important factors to keep in mind when shopping for area rugs. Here is why the size is important. It provides a boundary and helps with designating certain areas of your space for certain functions; for example, dining room boundary can be easily defined by the size of the rug which is normally about two feet larger than table all around.

Most oriental rugs as well as contemporary rugs are made overseas in Asia and Europe. The measuring system is metric. Every meter is 3.28 feet and when a size is converted to feet, we always get some change, so to speak.

So what size should your rug be? I recommend this formula which I use myself:

Space + Function + preference = size

Now let’s breakdown the formula. Space is the size of your room where the rug is going to be used. Function is defined by what we do and the rug is supposed to do in the room. Preference is a personal taste and sense of design.

Let’s say you want to buy a rug for your living room where you hang out and have normally have a coffee table. The first thing you need to do is to measure the the entire space of your living room. Depending on the purpose which the rug serves like keeping your feet warm in winter time or covering that damaged spot in your tile floor, you decide how much of the space should the rug cover. That might be all you need to measure for the size of the rug. However, depending on what type of climate you live in, and the type of floor you have, the rug might serve a different function for you. If you have young children at home, the rug can serve different functions such as protection while the kids play on the floor and sound reduction when they run around the room and might disturb the neighbors living below your apartment.

The last element in the formula is the preference. You might think a small area rug under the coffee table looks a lot better than a larger size which covers the entire space in your living room. When it comes to bedroom area rugs, you may prefer a larger rug one which almost covers the entire floor so your bare feet are always pampered with the softness of your rug.

Those are the things you need to consider when measuring for an area rug. Thankfully, area rugs come in variety of sizes (and shapes), finding one to fit your space shouldn’t be difficult.

Area Rugs come in variety of sizes. Here is a scale to give you a sense of demensions.

Here are the most common rug sizes (approximately) and where they are used:

2 x 4 – They are usually called scatter rugs and used in places like bathroom, kitchen and doorway.

3 x 5 – Slightly larger than scatter rugs and usually used in entrances or kitchens.

4 x 6 – Used in entrances and under small coffee tables

5 x 8 – This is one of the most popular sizes to use in living room when you want the rug to come up just to the couch and still show lots of floor.

6 x 9 – Very similar to 5 x 8 just slightly larger.

7 x 10 – This size is not very common, however you can find it if you look around a bit. This size is good for dining rooms with a small space.

8 x 10 – Every time I hear this size, the word dining room comes to my head. It is the most popular size for the dining area which allows the chairs to remain on the rug when pulled back. It is also used in living rooms.

8 x 11 – Very similar to 8 x 10 just slightly longer.

9 x 12 – Most common size for homes with large living room or dinning room.

10 x 14 – These are large rugs which are usually too big for average rooms.

You can also find very large rugs, or sometimes called mansion rugs, in certain patterns. There are also few rug types that can be custom ordered to fit your need.

A popular shape that many people prefer is the round one. The round rugs are usually used in foyer and dining room. If you are looking to buy a round rug, be sure to check out Momeni and Sphinx rugs. Here are the most common sizes for round rugs:

4 x 4, 6 x 6, 8 x 8 and 10 x 10.

We hope you found this post useful. If you have any any questions or need help with choosing the right size, AreaRugsClub.com is here for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Skye

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Posted on September 11th, 2009 under Area Rugs. Tags: Add new tag, area rugs sizes, bedroom area rugs, common rug sizes, oriental rugs, Round Rugs, rugs. Comments: 2

Foreign Accents Rugs offer variety of styles, however; they are best known for their gorgeous contemporary rugs.

Foreign Accent rugs are some of the best looking rugs available today. Area Rugs Club is proud to offer this collection of fantastic rugs.

As anyone who has used a Foreign Accent rug knows, they have some innovative designs with unique styles that have earned it its reputation. Foreign Accent rugs not only cover the floor, they make a style statement and transform the entire look and feel of the floor. That’s why these rugs are so sought after. Area rugs from Foreign Accent rugs come in a wide variety of styles and shapes and sizes. These are suitable for all kinds of applications. The categories are accent rugs, contemporary rugs, kids rugs, traditional rugs, southwestern rugs, transitional rugs, modern rugs, Shag rugs, Oriental rugs and more. There are round rugs, oval rugs, square rugs, rectangular rugs and runners.

One great thing about Foreign Accent rugs is that they come from many different countries where they are manufactured using their endemic techniques. There are hand knotted, hand woven, hand tufted and hand crafted. So they can cater to large variety of tastes and settings. When I went to an area rugs trade show in Las Vegas couple weeks back, I made sure to stop by their booth and bring you these wonderful rugs at very affordable prices. We are here to make you happy and bring you best of area rugs industry has to offer. Please let us know if there are other lines of fine rugs you want us to include on our website.

thanks for reading!
cheers!

Jeff (Buyer at Area Rugs Club)

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Posted on February 25th, 2009 under Area Rugs, Uncategorized. Tags: Area Rugs, Contemporary Rugs, Foreign Accents Rugs, modern rugs, oriental rugs, rugs, Runners. Comments: None

Area Rugs in the West

The art of area rug making and the taste for wool area rugs spread across Europe with her contact with Islamic civilization. The earliest European rugs were made in Spain, and some of these pre-date the Muslim invasion. The Synagogue rug, a wool area rug dating from the 14th century, is the earliest extant example of this ancient style. The Armorial carpets, another well-known remnant of this style, has birds and flowers motifs and depictions of Spanish Christian families. This style gave way to the Renaissance style with its silk designs and wreath and pomegranate motifs as the land was re-conquered from the Moors.

The Flying Carpet by Viktor Vasnetsov (1880). Oil, canvas.

In early seventeenth century, France began producing wool area rugs at Savonnerie in the style of Persian rugs. These were densely ornamented with flowers, and were characterized by architectural framing and mythological scenes. The most famous of these were a set of 105 carpets produced under the direction of Charles Le Brun for the palace at Louvre.

Area rug making came to England in late 16th century AD. The 14 extant specimens are called “Norwich carpets” after the town in Northern England where they were produced. These are adaptations of Oriental rug making, especially of the Indo-Persian art. In the coming centuries, the carpet manufacturers Exeter, Moorfields and Axminster became prominent in England. The heart of English area rug manufacture was at Kiddernminster in Worcestershire, where, to this day, a majority of the population is engaged in the industry.

1791 saw the beginning of area rug manufacturing in the United States with William Sprague’s first woven carpet mill in Philadelphia. Other such manufacturers sprung up in New England, and the Beattie Manufacturing Company in New Jersey of that era lasted until 1979.

The revolutionary power loom was invented by Erastus Bigelow in 1839. Area rug making doubled and then tripled in the next few years due to the impact of the power loom. Various enhancements and modifications began to be made, and new companies sprung up based on each such modification. Alexander Smith and sons, which was based on the Skinner powerloom, was founded in 1845 and grew to become the largest manufacturer of area rugs in the world by 1929.

At around the same time, in 1926, Marshall Fields, the well-known Chicago retailer, had a traditional Axminster loom modified to create an unprecedented area rug – a wool rug that was woven through the back like Oriental carpets and with the same sort of color variations as an Oriental. These area rugs were called Karastan rugs, and they are still widely manufactured and fawned upon by carpet-lovers.

Another development took place in Dalton, Northern Georgia, where a young woman named Catherine Evans Whitener invented a new method for weaving wool area rugs – this was called tufting and mainly used for making bedspreads. This became widely popular throughout the US and elsewhere, and Dalton became known as the Bedspread Capital of the World.

Meanwhile, wool area rugs also began to mature as an industry. Various new finishing processes were invented by manufacturers in a bid to give their area rugs a more antique, oriental quality. The creation of a faded, vintage patina, much like the grayed photographs of old days, began to gain a sophistication which made it hard to tell an ancient oriental area rug from a present-day rug manufactured by the likes of Karastan. Using chemical dyes, wool area rugs made in present day USA could be given the same texture and appearance that a fabulously ancient Persian rug using vegetable dye could have. The ancient industry seemed to have come full circle.

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Posted on August 18th, 2008 under Area Rugs. Tags: area rug, Area Rugs, European carpet, European rugs, history, Karastan, karastan area rugs, oriental carpets, oriental rugs, rug, rugs. Comments: 3

Wool area rugs, and area rugs in general, have been with us since the dawn of human civilization. From the first reed and animal skin rugs used by Paleolithic men, to modern machine-loomed wool area rugs decorating multi-million dollar homes, area rugs have been prized possessions of many a household. In the days of Jesus, sheep was reared, their wool sheared and made into wool area rugs, one or two of which He probably might have used; 500 years earlier, it was not unusual for another such man, Buddha, to sit on a coarse woolen area rug and talk to his disciples. Both were eastern men, and oriental rugs were an important part of the life of the Orient.

The earliest area rug was discovered by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in a Russian archaeological exploration in 1949. Made of hand-woven wool, the Pazyryk area rug’s exquisite design, texture and its rich colors were remarkably well-preserved in the frozen Siberian burial site where it had laid hidden under the earth for 25 long centuries. This wool area rug is an exceptional example of Saka art, featuring a hand-knotting technique still used in modern times.

Another famous wool area rug from the ancient times is the legendary “Spring of Khosrau,” an enormous and richly decorated hand-knotted area rug belonging to the King of Persia. Made about 550 BC, this area rug was made of wool, silk, gold, silver and gemstones. It had beautiful springtime sceneries woven into its texture, and its “flowers in bloom”, birds, green meadows and other carpet art are wonders of Persian carpentry. No wonder the King spent many a long winter evening wandering along its four hundred thousand square feet area, and admiring the exquisite art of his carpeteers.

Carpetmaking is an ancient household tradition in Turkey as well. A group of eighteen carpets, called the Konya carpets, is the oldest surviving knotted pile area rug in the world. Woven in the 13th century, in the Anatolia peninsula, these wool area rugs were produced under the Seljuc dynasty and had calligraphy borders called kufi, as well as symmetrical geometrical designs repeated at the center field.

The Indus Valley civilization in modern day India and Pakistan shows signs of some of the earliest area rug manufacture. A wide variety of spindles and weaving material has been discovered in these ruins. Four thousand years later, the Mughal conquerors brought to this very same region the art of area rug-making, an art that was developed in India into the exquisite perfection that it has today.

Oriental area rugs first entered Europe with the returning Crusaders. But these were mainly used on walls and table tapestries, and were considered too precious to be actually used as area rugs. With the colonization of the Orient, a large importing of oriental area rugs began to take place.

The earliest known European-made area rugs began to be produced in Spain around the time of the Moorish invasion. A lot of these were wool area rugs. These had the distinct impact of the conquering Islamic civilization; they had the same floral motifs, geometrical patterns, delicacy of color and lack of any human figures as had the Persian and Turkish area rugs and other Oriental rugs.

From Spain, the art of rug-manufacturing spread to France. During the seventeenth century onwards, important battles fought by France were gloriously depicted on area rugs of that era. The art slowly spread to England and other areas of the Continent; in England, the earliest surviving rugs, called the Bayes rug, are to be found in the Cathedral of the city of that name. They have exquisite designs and depictions of battles against France.

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Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Area Rugs. Tags: area rug, Area Rugs, history, oriental rugs, persian rugs, rug, rugs, wool area rugs, wool rugs. Comments: None