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Rugs and cool carpets, as small and insignificant as they may seem, eventually play an essential role in how a room looks and feels. From the first moment you lay them down, everything in the room changes.

Luckily, the market is overwhelmed by cool area rugs that help achieve the desired mood in the room, or make it more cheerful.

You can execute literally all living room rug ideas that come to your mind, as the spectrum of available and inexpensive rugs comes in all shapes, sizes, proportions, and colors.

The best part is that the cool rugs you’ve chosen now can easily be replaced once they become less cool or go out of style.

With so many opportunities, however, choosing the best rugs for your home will be a challenging task. There will be plenty of affordable rugs in all sizes and colors, and you should ideally pick the ones that will make the biggest difference to your room.

Modern living room rugs

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Rugs in living rooms are not absolutely required, but are yet strongly recommended in cooler industrial and minimalist settings where their soft texture adds the missing layer of coziness to make the place feel like home.

Besides, rugs can be used in every room around the house, including the bedroom, kitchen, and the bathroom, where they will also ‘soften’ the ambiance or simply update the looks hiding all wear and tear that would take a larger investment to repair.

They are quick and easy updates for every home, in particular when bright and vivid, and added to distract attention from boring hard floors and monochrome palettes.

Another interesting idea that will be even more affordable is to update and repurpose an existing rug, or maybe come up with few clever DIY plans to repaint them for little bucks.

Crazy Pompom Rug

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Pompom rugs are among the most playful and festive rug ideas, especially if you create them yourself using multiple pom-poms in bright and involving colors.

Modular carpet tiles

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Modular tiles’ biggest advantage is that they are easy to clean and maintain.

They are created with a process called recycled backing, and consist of thick pile that can easily be washed of, or replaced upon need.

Braided towel rugs

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Every family has a batch of used towels that have no purpose, so why not braiding them to create a chic rug or a cushy bathmat?

Woven rugs

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If you are creative and like repurposing fabric, focus your art on king-size bed sheets that can easily turn amazing rugs for the bathroom, kitchen, or hallway.

Urban and cheap outfitters

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It will cost almost nothing to pick few brightly colored woven rugs for less trafficked area, but have in mind that most of them will require pads underneath to back them and prevent slipping.

Basic knitting rugs

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This is another creative DIY project for every homeowner – if you’ve adopted at least some of the crochet or basic knitting technique, you can easily turn a simple rope into an amazing rug.

Faux fur rugs

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While it is generally accepted that DIY projects are more rustic than elegant, there is still a way to display an elegant, homemade rug.

The solution is dramatic faux fur, which is both easy to wash and very appealing.

White fur may not be recommended for trafficked area rugs, but white faux fur certainly is.

Felt stone rugs

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Instead of buying a felt stone rug, you can make one combining your pompom rug pebble.

Forest-like flows

How does turning your floor into a multifaceted color, dimension, and texture landscape sound?

Your kid can easily have its own delicate and shiny forest moss in the room, with draped rocks in it to snuggle the magical stream.

Another great idea is to mimic star-like plants crawling from the ocean, embedded in a paint scheme that will preserve the nature-inspired consistency.

Rugs in wild colors

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If looking to enhance your space with a hip or modern vibes, consider wild colors reminiscent of the ones displayed on computer screen pixels.

Leather and scrappy shag rugs

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Consider textures that will add a butter-soft and warm feeling each time you step on the rug, combined with offbeat and delightful colors that further enhance the homey feeling.

Neutral rugs

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Neutral rugs are the perfect foundation for rooms rich in color, pattern, or texture, as they assume the role of a pastel canvas that allows literally all combinations and experiments.

Rugs with modern stamps

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A contemporary flair in choosing rugs is to look for stamps and symbolic illustrations, in particular for rooms where similar murals and colors are already displayed on the walls.

The things you should consider when choosing the ideal rug

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There is much more to choosing a rug than simply chasing chill off your floors, as you are simultaneously looking for a decorative element that will tie up styles and colors, and make the place feel homey and welcoming.

Rugs make it easy to complement a room’s appearance, and should ideally be chosen prior to choosing furniture in order to avoid using them incorrectly.

For most people, unfortunately, flooring is still an afterthought once it is too late to consider the room’s proportions, and that’s where they go wrong.

This is why we often see misbalanced textures and colors ruining perfect living rooms.

The principles of proportion matter to rugs selection just as much as usage expectations do, which is why we recommend you to get acquainted with the process in advance.

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The first thing you should know is that the larger your rug is, the calmer and more elegant its effect will be, which is why such are more likely to be found in traditional settings than contemporary ones.

Modern rooms keep in line with the minimalist design concept, where a popular idea is to compromise between size and necessity, and where tiny rugs are used to mark an area.

Another thing that must be considered is the overall color scheme used in the room – for bright and vivid colors, it is better to choose simple designs and restricted palettes that look goof together.

An interesting tactic is to opt for milder shades and hues of the colors used on the walls, or to preserve elegance with beige, white, or black rooms.

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On the other hand, the simpler and more virtuously restricted in color your room is, the more vibrant the rug should be, and coincide with other similarly colored accessories such as pillows, vases, curtains, and so on.

A spectacular idea for funky spaces looking to revoke the 80’s style is leather furniture complemented with neon and multicolor carpets. Go even further by considering other disco tunes, and your living room will be one of a kind.

Let’s give a look to the opposite scenario now: if your room is fully decorated, and you’re looking to fit a rug there, go for patterns that won’t compete with the walls, upholstery, or curtains.

Instead, try to balance as much as possible, and determine which element has the central position (if it is the rug that is supposed to bring boldness and pizzazz to the living space, make sure other elements don’t).

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Sounds complicated, but there is in fact a pretty simple rule of foolproof coordination: the rug should always match the secondary color/pattern instead of the primary one.

When it comes to size, there are two options to consider: Living rooms usually benefit from modern and oversized rugs that can accommodate all of the furniture inside (most of the time, 2.5 x 3.5 m), or slightly smaller, traditional ones where you can place only the sofa and the coffee table (usually, 1.6m x 2.3m).

In the dining room case, the smartest course of action is to look for larger rugs where both the table and the chairs can be positioned on it.

Basically, there should be no legs ‘falling off’ it, as it may seem too small.

The pros of choosing cool rugs for your place

Most property holders nowadays opt for elegant and easy-to-maintain flooring options such as stone, tile, or hardwood, which as beautiful as may be, require a soft and interesting touch to make them homey and welcoming.

This is how carpets and rugs came to be an important design element that shouldn’t be neglected in any home, due to, as we are about to see, numerous aesthetic and practical benefits.

Elegance and beauty

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Carpets and rugs come in all sizes and colors, diverse enough to support any style, and to show who you genuinely are.

They will be your own beautiful and inexpensive assets that help personalize your space, make it appealing and welcoming, and provide a number of practical benefits such as thermal control and safety.

Temperature control

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Rugs are not only beautiful, but very practical too.

They give the room extra warmth during cooler seasons, and assist you keeping warm air inside.

They are also a protective asset for the family, and one that does a pretty good job covering damage or decreasing the effect of resounding and clamor resonation.

Overall, rugs are affordable and reasonable home investments. The most inexpensive ones are flat weave rugs, while woven and hand knotted ones are slightly more expensive.

A cool idea we are about to discuss is hanging rugs on the walls, so that your room will obtain a personalized and attractive look.

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At the same time, you will be hiding damage and blemishes, and support the shapes and colors you’ve already selected for your furniture.

As we will see later on, rugs and carpets are associated with a number of safety benefits – thanks to them, you can ensure traction and lower the possibility that someone will slip and fall.

There are multiple rug themes to choose from, including shapes, colors, letters, numbers, animals, or objects that can help your little ones learn.

There are even cool themes for sports fans to enhance their interest and practical experience.

No more slipping or falling

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The security aspect of brining a carpet to your living room is also very important: rugs and carpets are unsurpassed foot friction solutions, ideal to prevent slipping and falling in the bathroom or the kids’ room.

Hidden damage

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Those of you who live in older residences or are trying to hind the wear and tear from their damaged floors should definitely consider covering blemishes with a well-maintained carpet.

The free-style concept of hanging oriental rugs on the walls can also help accentuating damaged walls.

Warmer and more comfortable rooms

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The reason why you should consider a carpet even in the most minimal and restrictedly furnished areas is its thermal resistance (also known as R-value), which can you’re your home less susceptible to season change.

With a cozy and soft carpet, you will preserve the warm air inside for a longer time, and have a comfortable area to sit, work, or play with your children.

Safer floors

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Rugs are also very flexible and soft, and easy to position between rooms or in sensitive regions where expensive flooring is likely to be scratched or damaged by furniture legs.

A rug on the doorway will also prevent garbage and sand from coming inside the room.

Reduced noise pollution

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Despite of where your house is located, technology, phones, pets, and children still make it a noisy place.

This is why some people add large carpets and cushion pads to absorb at least some of these sounds, and block at the same time the noise they are creating from transmitting to the other rooms.

Have in mind that stairs are the most trafficked area and the house, and need thereof a soft carpet to neutralize sound.

Ending thoughts

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Rugs are cool enough to become the center of attention in every room, and complement monochromatic settings playing the role of a focal piece.

This is why it is so important to choose the right rug that will make your place look and feel like home.

If you liked this article, you should check out this one on how to decorate a living room and dining room combination.