How To Position Your Area Rug in a Bedroom
Whether you’ve just moved in or you’re just now getting around to making your living space more personal, there’s no better way to instantly transform a room than adding a beautiful rug – specifically an area rug. An area rug can make a room feel complete and adds an instant infusion of texture, color, and personality.
Area rugs are perfect if you like to change up your space frequently because switching a rug out is much easier than repainting a room or reupholstering all of your furniture! Basically, if you’re looking to give your bedroom a facelift, this type of carpet is for you.
But while you may already know the style and colors you’re going for, figuring out exactly how to place your new rug can be a challenge. There are a few different ways to approach area rug placement in your bedroom, depending on your space and what you’re looking to highlight with your new decor.
Let’s talk about how to position your area rug in a bedroom so that when your rug finally arrives, you have no hesitation about what to do next.
Pros of Having an Area Rug in Your Bedroom
Everyone approaches decorating their space in different ways. While some may be comfortable accumulating furniture over time, others like to nest as soon as they’re into their new home. Some of us will focus on what to hang on the walls, others still will prioritize texture and textiles, and others will focus on the big-ticket items like a living room sofa.
The nice thing about area rugs is that they pretty much check all these boxes at once! They’re a large centerpiece for your room that can draw a lot of attention. In addition, the perfect rug is also highly personal, not only matching to your individual style but also adding a strong textural element to your room! This is especially important if you have hard floors and prefer cool materials for your furnishings, like wood and metal.
Area rugs are also useful when it comes to dividing up a large room into smaller areas. While at first, that might make you feel like your room size is going to appear smaller, it actually can add a lot of depth and interest to your room.
It’s also a great way to designate different areas within a room without breaking up the flow with room dividers or bookcases. Especially with open plan living spaces continuing to be so popular, it’s nice to be able to feel like you both have a unified space for everything you need while reaping the benefits of an airy, open living space. The unifying effects of area rugs are best seen in dining rooms, larger bedrooms, and living rooms with a simple furniture layout.
Lastly, area rugs are completely crucial for comfort if you live somewhere that has serious seasonal weather changes. Whatever your heating situation is, it can really add up over the course of a brutal winter, and there’s nothing worse than having to make the choice between wearing gloves in your house or risking an astronomical bill by turning the heat up.
While area rugs aren’t going to suddenly turn your space into a summery paradise, having rugs in both smaller rooms and larger rooms adds insulation to your floor. Particularly if you have hardwood, laminate, or other types of flooring that are vulnerable to the cold, an area rug will trap the cool air before it can seep into your room and bring down the temperature.
That’s why area rugs are a particularly great addition to your bedroom. There is quite literally nothing in the world worse than prying yourself out of your cozy bed early on a Monday morning, when the sun still isn’t up because it’s winter, and putting your feet down onto an ice-cold floor. Did you just shudder? We just shuddered. That’s why you need an area rug.
How Do You Position Your Area Rug?
Now that you’re convinced an area rug is exactly what you need to make your space feel more complete, it’s time for the next big decision in your rug journey. Where are you going to put it? While at first glance this can seem intuitive once you’re standing in the doorway of your bedroom with your rug leaning against the wall, you’re going to realize it’s not as easy as you thought. Your bedroom rug placement choice can depend on the dimensions of your bed, the width of your rug, and which shape rug you’ve chosen.
There are certain ways to use an area rug that will unify your space and make it feel larger and more put together… and there are other ways to place your area rug that will result in your room feeling small and cramped.
On top of just the aesthetics of placing your rug, you also want to consider functionality. Do you want to place an expensive, non-washable rug right beneath your makeup table? Maybe not. Will your area rug look amazing on the opposite side of the room to your bed? Maybe, but is that going to keep your toes warm in the dead of winter?
Let’s talk about a few of the standard area rug locations for your bedroom.
1. Under Your Bed
This applies to just about any room you’re looking to place an area rug in. Selecting a central piece of furniture — whether it’s something you want to feature like a piano or sofa or more commonly the largest piece of furniture in the room — to orient your area rug around can really anchor the room and make it instantly appear more put-together. In the bedroom, this means placing your area rug under your bed.
It’s best, however, not to place the rug entirely underneath your bed. You’ll want the area rug to extend beyond either side of your bed so that when you get up in the morning, you have something soft and cozy beneath your feet. If you have nightstands or other furnishings on either side of your bed, placing the rug so that it extends slightly beyond this furniture is a great way to ensure your rug looks cozy and luxurious, rather than awkwardly small for the space.
While you can align your rectangular rug with the wall behind your bed, it tends to make the area feel a bit more expansive if you adjust the rug down slightly so that the top of the rug is aligned a couple of feet away from the top of your bed. This ensures that the bottom of your rug will extend beyond the foot of your bed, which is key when it comes to convincing the eye that it’s looking at a bigger space.
Whether you prefer a dark, cozy rug for your room like our Hali rug in Indigo/Bronze (a particular fav) or something more bright and neutral like our Canyon rug in Oatmeal and Grey (pictured above), placing your area rug below your bed will make sure your favorite place in your house gets the attention it deserves.
2. Around Your Bed
Another option for making your bed the feature of your room in a slightly different way is to frame a large piece of furniture with your rug. Rather than placing a large rug beneath your bed, you can opt for two smaller runners. These runners can be placed on either side of your bed.
There are a lot of benefits to this option! For one, you still get to touch down on something soft and cozy when you get up in the morning. For another, two runners or small area rugs will generally be more affordable than a large area rug — which is saying something, because all of our rugs are designed to be well within your budget. Just look for a runner that’s about as long as your bed, and you’re off to the races.
And if you’re unsure about the rugs shifting around and getting out of place since they won’t have the weight of your bed to hold them still, don’t. Tumble’s unique rug pad will keep your runners firmly and place — there’s no need to worry about slipping or tripping.
3. To Separate Different Areas of Your Bedroom
If you’d like to use more than one area rug to liven up your space, or you’re just not sure that your giant king-sized bed is the star of the show, you can also use an area rug to unify areas of your room. For instance, if you have an armchair, bench, or other seating situation in your bedroom, a smaller area rug can take the requisite chair-you-stack-all-your-stuff on and turn it into a cozy corner to wind down in before bed.
Even if your makeup table is where you’d like to have your area rug despite the high likelihood of spilling something on it, Tumble has your back. Our rugs are washable and stain resistant, so even if you send an entire bottle of foundation spilling onto your area rug, you’re covered. Plus, dirty carpets and rugs can interfere with the air quality of your living space, so being able to toss your rug in the washing machine and be sure everything is pristine is a real win.
Area Rugs for the Win
An area rug can make a huge difference to the look and feel of your living space. Try one of these tactics for positioning your new rug in your bedroom to give your home’s coziest room a new lease on life!
Sources:
Simple Steps to improve Home Insulation: Essential Answer | Stanford Magazine
