Looking for an Area Rug

Area rugs are wonderful things.  They can help cover up spots instead of recarpeting an entire room.  We knew that one of the rooms in our new home had a lot of spots on the carpet.  But, we did not realize what bad shape it was in until we began preparing to move in!  I only took a picture of the piano because the carpet looked so bad I don't think I wanted to remember it down the road.  I cleaned the carpet and was able to get out a lot of the stains, but quite a few large stains remained.  I also did spot treat the stains with Resolve and scrub with a strong scrubbing brush before I used the carpet cleaner on it.  That helped a lot.  My husband and I realized that the room desperately needed an area rug.


To carpet a room can be quite expensive.  I estimated that this room would cost about $600.  But, you also have the hastle of moving everything out of the room and scheduling the installation.  In our case, we didn't even consider that because of all the other home repair projects we have to take care of right now.  So, we started looking for a rug.


We looked at Home Depot, Costco, BJs, Ollie's (a local store similar to Big Lots or Pic 'n Save), IKEA, Lowe's, and Target.  The rugs varied a lot.  The price range for an 8 x 10 rug was $100-$500.  I was very surprised at what I found.


One of the most surprising things was that many of the "rugs" at IKEA were really unbound pieces of carpet.  I thought $200 for a large piece of unbound carpet was quite high.  We did purchase a 5' x 7' blue rug from IKEA.  We tried it out in several rooms of our home, but then returned it.  We had a similar IKEA rug a few years ago, but the quality of the rug had been higher.  You could clearly see the white backing through the blue threads.  For $70, it was not a very good value.


Another thing that surprised me was the clear difference in quality as correlated to cost.  The rugs at Ollie's would be great floor coverings for rooms that you simply needed something on the floor.  Some of them were softer and thicker than others.  They were as nice as the IKEA rugs, but half the price.


Target had a nice selection of rugs.  They felt nice and had some great patterns.  They carried some 5' x 7' rugs in the store, but only 1 or 2  8' x 10' rugs.  They have many on their website, though.  The price range for rugs was similar at Home Depot, Lowe's, and at Target.  We found 8' x 10' rugs that varied between $225 (for very thin) to $400 for a much thicker rug.  Home Depot and Lowe's both had some 8' x 10' rugs in stock.  Target had 1.  That was a factor for us.  Christmas is almost here and we wanted our den to look presentable (the spots were that bad).

We settled on a rug from Lowe's.  The price listed at the aisle was $278.  It rang up for $288, but they will give it to you for the price listed if you ask.  I also had a 10% off coupon which brought the price down to $251.  We brought the rug home and it fit perfectly in the room.  We had wanted a rug that would hide the dirt and work with the couch and other furniture in the room.  I am so thankful that the rug has done just that!  


As for the design and color of the rug...  One of our friends explained to us that Persian style rugs are great for hiding dirt and spots.  I can see why!  I had never thought of them that way.  We chose this rug because we thought the color of it would also hide dirt well.  In the first day on our floor, it always has.  The carpet in this room is a magnet for dirt and leaves!  In this room, we have a red couch, tan walls, beige carpet underneath, our television console, and our homeschooling supplies and furniture.  I wanted a rug that would complement the red couch, but not seem too dark for the room.  The first picture shows how dark the paneling was before I painted it last week.  We wanted to keep the lightness of the room that the painting brought to it.  This rug has done a great job doing just that.  I chose a rug with a little red in it with colors that complemented the couch, but mostly contrasted with the red.


The other aspect of the rug I considered was the pile.  We have a dog and 3 children.  I didn't want a loop rug that was going to get easily snagged by Molly's nails.  I had a friend who carpeted her house in berber and then had to recarpet the whole house within a year because of how hard her 2 dogs were on the carpet.  Ever since I heard that story, I always try to think about what we're going to do on the carpet (sit, stand, walk) and who's going to be on it (pets and people)!  


So, that's our rug.  After all our shopping, it feels good to look at it and know how much of a difference it has made to how the room feels!