The Evolution of Rug Choices For My Bedroom Design

For as long as I’ve been designing, I’ve struggled with rug choices. It’s the one thing I get the most analysis paralysis on. Sure I’ve been known to hem and haw over paint colors, but floorcoverings always get me. The thing is, in my head, I think I like bold, colorful rugs. Pattern-heavy kilims, Persian Tabriz designs, ornate Oriental varieties…I love them so much when I see them in other rooms and homes. It’s always what I pull first, but when push comes to shove, I never stick with it, usually swapping in something lighter, less intense.

This happened when I was working on my living room. I was dead-set on a red-hued vintage rug to complement the blue velvet sofa I was eyeing. I mocked up that space every which way, and every time I looked at the rich rug with the rich sofa, I got a little itchy. “Not for me,” my brain would tell me. I’ve come to learn that I prefer a bold rug in a quieter room, and a quieter rug in a bold room…but I often forget that I’ve “learned” this about myself when I start a new project.

Case in point: in my bedroom. While those design choices have made lots of pivots and left turns along the way, the essence of it hasn’t changed much. I purposefully was creating a space that would be bright, happy, colorful. Surely, a Persian-esque rug would add to that colorful aspect…so, I tried it. And this is what it looked like in a moodboard:

Don’t get me wrong…I love this in theory. It’s very grounding, but it never felt quite right to my eye. Maybe for someone else, but not for me. Every time I’d find a new touchpoint of inspiration, the rug was either a solid color or had a subtle, more neutral design scheme. I’d sigh with relief, my eyes would relax, I’d breathe a little easier.

But I loved this rug, so I kept trying to make it work…or things LIKE it, such as:

I spotted this shag rug on Annie Selke, and I liked it for its brightness, but when I plopped it into the design, it’s all I could see. This rug in a room with wood flooring and maybe a wood or light-colored upholstery bed would be lovely, but with a darker velvet bed like this one I was considering for a while (from Lulu & Georgia), it was just too much…for me. Should I walk into a boutique hotel and find this look, I’d love it. Surely taking notes about being so bold. But again, it just wasn’t working for me. Then came this one, which was wrong for many reasons, but sometimes, you just have to try it:

There are many things wrong with this rug option in this room with these furnishings. Not enough contrast, too muddy, the center medallion (the star of a rug like this) hidden away from the world under the bed. Just didn’t make sense. After this one, I played around a little bit more but didn’t save anything because it all just felt too heavy. Overly weighted. My bed, whatever I decided on, was going to be featured piece, and I didn’t want to take away from it by going overly heavy handed with a floorcovering.

So…I took my foot off the gas pedal and toned it down a little bit. I liked this one for a while:

Already, that felt much better to me. More in line with how I wanted my bedroom to feel. Punchy, but peaceful. This one had a few subtle light blue lines through it, which was a nice counterbalance to the warm rusts and mustards, but ultimately, I grew quite bored of it. Each I looked at it, it felt like someone else’s rug. No element you put in your room should feel like someone else’s anything. It should feel like yours because it will be yours.

All along, there was a rug I kept coming back to. Over and over again, but I wouldn’t even bother dragging it into my Photoshop files, convinced I wouldn’t be into it. But once I decided on a new color story and a different bed, I decided to give it a shot.

This right here finally felt like me. Not like a room I was trying to make work or trying to make over-anything or trying to impress with. A simple broken stripe in a simple mocha and cream was the perfect companion to the mustard yellow bed I settled on. Every time I was on the Lulu & Georgia website, looking at this bed, checking dimensions, reevaluating my love for it, this rug would pop up on the homepage or in related items…somewhere for me to pay attention to it. I didn’t want to want it. I wanted something flashier, more ornate, something to write home about, but alas, this is what won me over. To me, it let the beautiful walnut wood of the nightstands sing, and the zesty bed fabric shine. It picked up the textures and colors of the Belgian linen curtains I installed, and just felt, frankly, like a visual sigh of relief.

And you know what? I very much feel happy with a bedroom that feels like a sigh of relief.

I plan on mixing things up with different bedding (this white here is just what the bed’s photo had when I pulled it from the website), art, interesting decor, but ultimately, I still want it to feel warm, glowy and pared down. I may add some blue into the mix because I think a cool color is always needed to balance a majority warm palette, and I’ll certainly pepper in some black and other natural tones and textures.

This view doesn’t give you the full scope of the room. I’m still working on finding a fantastic printed fabric for a chair I need to reupholster (though I am thinking of replacing it for a glider or rocking chair for the baby), and trying to decide on a dresser. Plus, the elusive vintage armoire I want for storage needs if I can find a way to fit that *and* a bassinet. We’ll see. Again, the space will evolve as our needs evolve. If it’s not time for my dream armoire, then it’s not time for it. It’ll come when it’s good and ready to come.

Just like this rug that took me over a year to decide on. A year to walk down the path from bold and punchy to simple and hushed. I wouldn’t have bet more than a dime at the beginning of this design process that a neutral striped rug is where I would have landed, but well…here we are, folks. The big lesson here? Sometimes, the thing you never thought you’d want is exactly what you need. Remember that!

See you tomorrow, FOAS.

(P.S. sorry there aren’t any links here to anything. I was having the hardest time getting websites to load for me while working on this post. Hopefully, it’ll be better tomorrow, so if you’re interested in anything, let me know and I’ll send along links or try to update if the internet Gods are nice to me tomorrow.)