Define Your Space

With today’s open concept homes and lofts people are finding it difficult to define separate spaces with out adding walls or blocking views. I was at a friend’s apartment the other night, he lives in a studio apartment and he was having just that problem. The apartment isn’t large, but it’s well designed, yet hard to tell the “bedroom” from the “living room”. He was mentioning how he might like to get a rug to put under his coffee table. I responded with, “Why don’t you get a rug that is large enough to define the whole living area?” By buying a slightly larger rug he will then define his separate spaces without blocking anything. That’s one of the great advantages to area rugs; you can use them to define spaces and areas within a space without taking away from the overall volume.

If you have a open concept home that has a kitchen, dining and living room (and I’ve seen many like this) why not get two coordinating rugs, one for under the dining table (I’ll do a post on how to make sure it’s the correct size later) and then one to define the conversation area of the living room? You keep your open concept, you don’t spend a lot of money with room dividers, you get two coordinating decorative accents (for the floor obviously) AND you define two very distinct spaces that happen to fall within the same larger space.

The same idea holds true for all of those new (and really cool old) loft apartments and condo’s. The whole idea of a loft is to have a huge open space. To relish in the volume of the area. But, having lived in one, it’s nice to define some of those spaces. It’s almost a subconscious need that we have to know where the dining room ends and the great room starts. Rugs do this and do it in a very subtle manner. They also let you express your personal design aesthetic and color choices. An area rug used for this purpose is one of the great uses for these fun, exciting, pieces.

My final suggestion when using area rugs to define two areas within a space is to use similar themes within each rug. In my own house I’ve defined the living area with a very traditional rug and the dining area with a more softly contemporary rug. The common thread that pulls it all together is the color. So, there’s one way, use color to pull things together and make them feel like they go. The other way is to use similar patterns, either in differing scale or within the same context i.e. using two rugs that are traditionally oriental or two that are both very contemporary.

Well, I hope this helps give you some ideas on how to create a space within your home that is uniquely you and as always if you have any questions about our area rugs, colors, designs or need help finding something, Customer Care is available and just a phone call away.