Why Cover Up Your New Hardwood Floor With an Area Rug?

Author: Dawn Wilkinson, Interior Designer
August 4, 1999

Introduction

If you are anything like my husband, you may be asking yourself, "Why would I put down an area rug over my beautiful new hardwood or laminate flooring?" The answer to this question lies within the reason why you initially decided to replace your existing floor covering. Let's say you have just removed the carpet in your family room, and installed a Pergo floor instead. You probably wanted to add the look of wood, which gives off a warm and cozy feeling. You also were looking for easier maintenance. An area rug is the perfect companion piece to finish off a newly installed laminate floor, for both of these reasons.

Warmth

Not only does a rug add physical warmth; it adds visual warmth. Under your bare feet, the cooler feel of a hard surface flooring will be softened by a soft area rug. When the weather gets warmer, you can easily roll up the rug and store it out of sight until cooler weather sets in again in the fall. Visually, an area rug adds warmth by the addition of color, pattern and texture. The colors in your rug should be selected by their ability to coordinate with your furniture, window treatments, and wall colors.

Maintenance

Area rugs are much easier to maintain than wall-to-wall carpeting. Wall-to-wall carpeting is often solid in color, therefore it is not very good at hiding those unsightly stains that occur from time to time. Rugs that are heavily patterned, with multiple colors are more "pizza-proof". To determine whether or not a rug is pizza-proof, imagine a slice of pizza landing upside down on your rug. If the rug has a busy pattern to it, you will probably not be able to see that pizza had landed upside down on your rug after removing the slice from the floor! This is not to say that the rug will not stain and this will be determined by the type of fiber used in the construction of the rug. But, the stain will be disguised by the patterning of the rug. Another reason that area rugs are easier to maintain; you can roll it up and take it into the dry cleaners.

The Tassel Hassle

Let's say the rug you want to purchase has "tassels" or fringes on the ends of it. The thought of keeping the fringes straight and tidy is enough to drive you crazy! Do not despair. You can take your rug to a custom carpet, fabrication and repair company. A great example of this type of company is DA Burns. You can check out their website at www.daburns.com.

They will carefully remove the fringe and surge the exposed edges to match the other finished edges. The cost of having a service such as this done should run anywhere from 3.5 to 5.5 per lineal foot, dependening on the type of surging to be done, as well as the value of the rug itself. After having the fringe replaced with surging, you will enjoy the clear edge detail and worry-free maintenance for the life of the rug.

The addition of an area rug is a great way to spice up an interior space that would otherwise be very dull. If you live in a rental apartment, you may have a basic beige carpet, adding a 5x8 rug that costs 250 will add a lot of character to the space. You have invested very little money but have added a work of art to your floor. If you ever move, you can take it with you!

Area rugs, a great investment!