Some useful basic guidelines when placing sofas on rugs along with other furniture.
Some useful basic guidelines when placing sofas on rugs along with other furniture.Selecting area rugs for living rooms where furniture layouts include sofas on rugs room with a is not as straightforward as finding the right size rug for under a dining room table or under a bed. There are more variables involved in determining the carpet size that works best for the seating area. Some basic guidelines apply but even those can vary with the layout and scale of a room. I don’t subscribe to the rule that the legs of your furniture must either be all on, or all off, the rug. Furniture contained completely on an area rug can redefine the room down to the size of the rug. Furniture placed off the rug often can look a bit disconnected. The idea is to work with all the elements and adjust them to a very specific setting. The rendering [above] shows a basic sectional layout that does have all the furniture on the rug.
In this room, the rug is large enough to cover most of the floor area. The seating is arranged in a conversational grouping with a sofa flanked by a pair of chairs and facing a pair of ottomans. Furniture pieces take up a lot of the space in the room. However, the rug works with the large-sized sofa and multiple chairs because the rug is large enough for all the pieces to fit comfortably on it, which in turn keeps this arrangement neatly grouped. It does look self-contained. Also, the neutral upholstery and neutral rug color let the more vibrant color of the armchairs help widen the seating area visually. The subtle pattern in the rug adds texture and a feeling of luxury.
A seating arrangement on a smaller rug and use it differently. Here, the sofa and other furniture sits on both the carpet and on the wood floor. The carpet becomes an organizing element rather than a platform. This set up works well when there is a smaller area with more limited seating.
For a room inspired by mid-20th century modern design, a lightly scaled sofa and two armchairs chairs sit on the outer edges of a textured area rug that’s well matched to the style. small, This setting is open but also in scale with the area facing the fireplace.
Finally, here are three points to consider when deciding what the relationship will be particularly for sofas on rugs:
- The size of your seating area and style furniture you have versus the visual weight of a rug.
- The relative texture/size/heft of the sofa and/or chairs that will sit on the rug. For example, a small flat woven rug can look skimpy beneath a heavy leather sofa and large coffee table.
- Open spaces and traffic patterns. A rug that sits awkwardly in a pathway to another room will be uncomfortable to walk on and receive wear more rapidly on the edges.
(Source: Jay Jeffers)
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Brilliant. Thank you. I have one of those living rooms. I was able to arrange it with two pathways. One in front of the sofa, between the coffee table…and one behind the sofa, that avoids cutting through the conversation area, and leads directly to either a) the other of the two chairs on either side of the fireplace, or b) to the dining room which is open to the kitchen. It’s FAB for parties because our living room, while very comfortable, is not overly big. So when we have people over it’s nice for them to have the option of two directions to disperse into.
And an island rug in the middle of the room with no furniture touching it bugs me, I do ascribe to the one to two legs of the furniture on the rug is just fine. A larger rug that the sofa and two chairs could be completely on (not to mention a little table and floor lamp for each chair) would not work in my space. I’m so glad I’ve got it right!
I agree with you Ivette. I prefer the legs on the rug vs all on the rug but it depends so much on the room. My pet peeve, though, is rugs that are too small for the space. Jane T has so much expertise in this area I always learn something from her pieces.