How to Choose the Right Rug For Your Dining Room

The reason you choose a dining room rug goes beyond protecting a floor or even creating a soft texture underfoot. Most often it is for the aesthetics or you are looking for a rug to complement the furniture and add more visual appeal to the area.

But a rug also helps muffle sounds and add warmth, both literally and figuratively. It protects your feet from cold, bare floors, while also helping hide less-than-attractive floors.

A rug is not limited to bare floors. You can throw one over carpeting or use a special one as a wall hanging to accentuate or create more visual interest. But how do you go about selecting the right floor covering? Colours and patterns primarily drive choices. And, in a dining room, you have to take into account several factors like size, shape, colour, and material.

How to Choose the Right Rug For Your Dining Room: Rug Size

While size is an important consideration when choosing any rug, size is even more important to consider when buying a dining room rug.

Match to dining set: Ideally, a dining room rug should be large enough to let you place your dining table and chairs on it. There should be enough room so that when chairs are pulled away from the table, they still have their back legs on them.
Do not forget the table leaves: When measuring your rug, do not forget to take into account the length of your table fully extended. Measure to account for any leaves that you use.
Measure the room: Check to see how your rug fits in the room. It is best to leave equal amounts of space on the sides for a balanced effect.
Do not cover too much of the floor: Choose a size that lets the rug end before it reaches the front legs of a sideboard, china cabinet, freestanding bar, or any other furniture other than the table and chairs that you have in the room. Never rest just the front legs of a piece of furniture on the rug because it affects the balance. If there is no way to avoid this, prop up the rear legs on rubber or wood shims.

Colour and Pattern

Choosing a colour or pattern is an important consideration. Those two elements provide eye appeal and interest in your dining room.

Decide on the rug’s intent: The colour of your rug can provide a starting point for your room’s colour scheme or a way to tie together colours. Decide on how the colour of your dining room rug will be used: as an accent, to create drama, to bring warmth, or tone down the mood.
Multicolour and patterned rugs: These rugs have the advantage of disguising spills.
Medallion prints: While medallion prints are often chosen for dining rooms, an all-over pattern can be more visually appropriate. The medallions often get hidden under the table.
Stripes: This popular design element can make the room look wider or longer.
Match the theme or period: Choose a pattern that harmonizes with the furniture period. A Persian or Oriental rug sets the right mood with traditional furniture, while a plain-coloured rug with an interesting texture or a striped or geometric pattern works better.