Take it to the floor - Tips on how to style your space with rugs

From a stylist perspective, I like to use all surfaces, textures and opportunities available to me. When you stand back and look at a room, a rug is rarely the things you see first. Despite the fact that it’s often the first thing you’ll tactically engage with, as you step into a space! But this is a deliberate trick of styling. A rug often ties a room together, reinforces a colour story or provides some much needed texture. I’ve been excited to work with Mellah Rugs to depict some rug styling tricks for you!

In these two bedroom images, the rugs are completing the selected colour story. In Molly’s room, the pink accents in the Blurred Lines artwork and bedspread are picked up in the rug. In this example, the colour story is deliberately simple; the tones match evenly and there is quite clearly a (pink!) ‘hero’ colour.

In the master bedroom, the colour story and therefor the rug, is a bit more multilayered. In this space, there are a few taupe furnishings, displayed in several textures and finishes. There’s the wooden bench at the edge of the bed, the neutral loveseat the gold hardware on the bedside lamp and the burnt sand throw pillow. There’s even a wooden frame on the picture resting on the floor. These shades are all in the same family but together, form a colour spectrum. As a result, the rug needed to tie it all in together so I chose a more sophisticated pattern with multiple colours and a raised texture.

I selected more of a statement for the living room. It compliments the Interior Environmentalist greenery from the plants to the upcycled green glass as well as of course, the budgie artwork by Leila Jefferys. But I wanted to share this example to discuss another important rug consideration: placement.

As a general rule, you always want to have a rug ‘disappear’ under your couch. This styling tip of laying the one end underneath the furniture creates much better flow to a room and even makes the space appear larger. Another way to ensure the rug is not making the room seem small is to ensure the flooring is displayed around the perimeter of the room. Small pieces of furniture are often best displayed adjacent to the rug rather than on top of it – the opposite rule as the couch trick.

This rug has both unusual geometric patter and large blocks of colour; it’s a statement piece. Because of this, I chose to place it in an area that had very little colour or pattern competing for your eye; the organic shapes of the vintage table make for a nice compliment and I selected a piece of art for the space that compliments the unusual shapes in the rug but is monochromatic: my Taxonomy Stag Beetle.

I hope these rug tips have been helpful! Happy rug hunting and styling!
Anna ox

Here are some of my 'Go to’s' for rug inspo & sourcing:
Mellah
Atelier Nomad
Drift home collection
The garden house store
Pop and Scott