Rug guide – how to select the right one

Choosing the right rug can give the whole room a lift, creating unity and harmony in your interior design. But it’s not always easy to make the right choice when it comes to colour, pattern and size in relation to the room and your other furnishings. Let us guide you to making the right choice for your home.

The rug – how does it impact the room?

Decorating with rugs makes a difference not only to the room’s visual impression but also to its overall ambiance. Rugs enhance acoustics, creating a more pleasant sound environment, provide warmth when the floor is cold, and simultaneously protect the flooring from daily wear and scratches.

The difference between sizes

A larger carpet gives a sense of unity and ties the furniture in the room together. The visual effect is that of a larger and more harmonious room. A large rug is perfect for creating a calm look where the furniture is fixed and doesn’t feel scattered.

Smaller rugs are great for creating playfulness and variety. With different colours and textures, you can create personal accents and vibrant contrasts in your interior design. They can also be used to highlight specific surfaces or create a “room within a room”.

Colour and pattern – create harmony or contrast

Patterned rugs can be works of art in themselves and create a sense of calm in a room. According to Josef Frank, a patterned surface can hold the observer's interest for longer, making the room more dynamic and alive.

“A monochrome surface seems unsettling, a patterned one calming, for the viewer is involuntarily affected by the slow approach behind it. The richness of the decoration cannot be fathomed so quickly, whereas the monochrome surface is immediately apparent and therefore no longer of interest.”

Solid colour rugs give a more minimalist impression and can fit well in rooms with many decorative elements. They can also help to emphasise other details in the interior.

Rugs in the living rooms

For the living room, we recommend that the rug goes outside the entire sofa group to tie the furniture together. As a guideline, the front feet of the sofa and the armchairs should stand on the rug. If possible, let the rug extend at least 20-30 cm beyond the width of the sofa to give a well-balanced impression.

Rugs in the dining room

The rug under the dining table set should be large enough so both the table and chairs completely fit on the carpet, even when the chairs are pulled out from the table. As a rule of thumb, the rug should cover about 60 – 70 centimetres beyond the table edges on either side.

Rugs in the bedroom

In the bedroom, it is important that the rug creates unity between the bed and the room. A larger rug should extend at least 50 cm beyond the bed on the sides and can be placed so that the bedside tables are also on the rug. Alternatively, smaller rugs can be placed alongside the bed for a soft and inviting feel. It is also common for the bedside tables to be free-standing and for the rug to cover about 2/4 of the floor under the bed and about 50 - 60 centimetres around it. Smaller rugs are best placed along the sides of the bed and close to it.

Rugs according to Svenskt Tenn’s interior design philosophy

Svenskt Tenn has always advocated for a combination of old and new, and mixing different styles and patterns in interior design. Decorating with rugs is no exception. Classic, oriental rugs combine beautifully with Josef Frank’s uniquely patterned rugs to create a timeless decor.

Josef Frank’s patterned rugs differ from his textiles, which often bear fanciful, botanical motifs. Instead, when designing carpets, he wanted to present an “authentic surface” to give a sense of having solid ground underfoot. Most of the rugs have abstract motifs and many emulate paved terraces. He felt that flowers and birds were not to be stepped upon.