Rugs that will floor you

Sun., April 9, 2006

Eils Lotozo Knight Ridder Newspapers

Area Rugs

Design Tips

Designing a room around the patterns and colors of an area rug is the ideal way to go, most interior decorators say. But for many of us, the typical challenge is finding a rug that will work with what we already have.

A Few Suggestions from the Experts:

•Try a rug that plays with a traditional design. It can update an uninspired room with a more modern look, says interior designer Eric Rymshaw of Fury Design in Philadelphia. "Rugs with patterns that are a very big scale, or have punched-up colors, can really liven up a traditional-feeling room."

•With such a big statement on the floor, though, be careful when adding more pattern to a room, says rug designer Annie Selke. "If you're going to put something bold on the floor, I wouldn't use vivid prints on the sofa and drapes."

Not that you can't mix patterns at all. Stripes, for example, go with almost anything. "But you need to keep things in the same color family," Selke says.

•Puzzled about rug size? Austin Craley, vice president of sales for Momeni Inc., says it's purely a matter of personal preference. You might like your sofa overlapping the edge of a large area rug; others might like their furniture clustered around a small one. "But one rule of thumb is that if you have beautiful hardwood floors, you want at least one to two feet showing around the edge of the room," he says.

If you have one of those cavernous great rooms, area rugs are an easy way to define different spaces within the room and add a more intimate feeling, Craley says.

"In the U.S., people think that if they have a big room they have to put a monster rug in it, but in Europe they buy multiple rugs for a large room. They're usually coordinated, but they're not matching."

Craley advises using masking tape to outline different potential rug sizes in a room, to see what they look like. Then you'll know exactly what size to buy when you go to the store. And don't forget to bring fabric swatches if there are drapes or upholstery the rug needs to work with.

•Go with wool. While there are plenty of attractive and affordable rugs out there made from synthetic fibers, nothing beats pure wool for a rug that wears and cleans well, Craley says. And always use an underlay to help keep your rug in place and in tip-top shape.

•Buy from a reputable dealer. That way, Craley says, if the rug turns out to be not quite what you had in mind when you get it home, you can return it. Selke agrees. "A big, bold pattern on the floor is more deceptive than one on the wall. There is no way of knowing what it will look like in a room without rolling it out there. Sometimes things recede, and sometimes they just jump off the floor."

Adding an area rug to a room basically used to mean one thing: buying an Oriental.

Not anymore.

The traditional, Persian-carpet look that long dominated the rug industry is being edged aside by bright, snappy, contemporary designs.

From the high end to the low, area rugs are sprouting fields of giant flowers and clouds of bubbles and swirls. They’re boasting kinetic grids and stripes, and a palette of candy colors guaranteed to wake up a room.

“More than half of our business is contemporary now,” says Austin Craley, vice president of sales for Momeni Inc., whose rugs supply thousands of retailers across the country. “Historically, they used to be about 5 percent, but in the past five years, contemporary rug sales have expanded dramatically.”

Philadelphia interior designer RJ Thornburg, known for his inventive approach to eclectic decors, says Orientals don’t offer the look he wants. His solution sometimes has been to design custom rugs for his clients.

“I did a couple of rugs that I call my modern take on the rag rug,” Thornburg says. “They seem to work very nicely when you want to put other patterns with it.”

But as recent design-industry trade shows in New York have demonstrated, there are plenty of retail sources for contemporary area-rug designs.

To name but a few designers in the market now: Bev Hisey, a former fashion designer, who die-cuts botanical patterns into leather and creates pieced-together wool felt rugs with an op-art look; and Emma Gardner, who offers zingy hand-knotted floral patterns.

Patty Huang, a rug buyer for Macy’s East Coast stores, sees customers combining the more formal look of an Oriental in a dining room with eye-catching contemporary rugs in dens, family rooms and foyers.

“People are getting bolder and more eclectic,” she says. “But I think the trend in general in the home is toward a more casual and relaxed lifestyle. You’re seeing it in all areas of home, and it’s trickling down to area rugs.”

San Francisco designer Linda Belden offers her elegant wool rug patterns in a crisp, flat-woven style made near Oaxaca, Mexico, and a hand-knotted version made in Tibet. She says she has seen her rugs used frequently in beach houses.

“And a lot of people put the flat-weave rugs, which are completely reversible, in kitchens,” she says. (Prices start at $1,500 for a 5-by-7-foot rug.)

Belden’s patterns reflect a variety of influences, including mid-century modern European designs and Japanese architecture. Just as varied is the look of the many lines that make up the burgeoning contemporary-rug category, from the abstract-art-inspired patterns of Momeni’s popular New Wave collection, to the groovy 1960s retro-style designs created by Angela Adams, one of the first to jump on the trend when she launched her rug line in 1997.

Then there are rugs that bring a contemporary edge to traditional patterns through the use of bold color.

“We call it tradition with a twist,” designer Annie Selke says of her Dash & Albert Rug Co., which offers hand-hooked wool rugs with patterns inspired by antique rugs and quilts — but in unexpected hues of hot pink, aqua, tangerine and lime.

Also manufactured by Dash & Albert is a line of wildly colored, striped cotton rugs. Both styles can work in a myriad of settings, enlivening a modern environment or refreshing a room full of antiques, says Selke, founder of the home-furnishings company Pine Cone Hill.

Color Matters

Color is the key selling point for rugs today, Craley says.

“When I first started in the rug industry 21 years ago, people asked, ‘How long will this rug last?”’ he says. “Now, if you tell them it’s going to last for two generations, they don’t see that as a positive. They know the colors are not going to be what they want 10 years from now, much less 30 years from now.”

Instead of making a big financial investment in a rug, many buyers are looking to cheaper ones as a temporary home-fashion accessory, he says.

“People today are more fluid, and they don’t want to be shackled with one color palette forever,” says Selke, who retails a 4-by-6 hooked wool rug for $288, and a 6-by-9 woven cotton rug for $194.

But color can be tricky to deal with. Especially in today’s open-plan homes, where one room is visible from the next or a big expanse of hard-surface flooring can require multiple area rugs.

“Most people don’t want every room in a house to look different. They want a flow,” says Jane Wright, sales and marketing manager for Company C, a firm that offers modern designs and more traditional florals, stripes and paisleys updated with saturated color.

In April, Company C will introduce a new “Room to Room” collection featuring patterns in similar colors that are meant to work together throughout a home.

“We have to credit our customers with the idea,” Wright says. “They asked for it.”

Contemporary rugs, and rooms that include mixed rug patterns, have been a popular look in European homes for a long time.

“We’re finally moving into that here,” Wright says. “We’re stepping out and not feeling so locked into conventional decorating schemes.”

Finding New Area Rugs

•Contemporary rugs from Momeni Inc. are available at Macy’s, Avalon Carpet & Tile, Floors USA, and many other stores. Information: www.momeni.com.

•To see the Dash & Albert Rug Co. catalog, go to www.dashnalbertrugs.com. For ordering information, call 413-637-1996.

•Information about Linda Belden Handmade Rugs is available at 415-674-9931 or www.lindabelden.com

•Shop online for Angela Adams’ rugs at www.angelaadams.com or 1-800-255-9454.

•For information about Bev Hisey rugs, go to www.bevhisey.com.

•Rugs by Emma Gardner Design are available at Minima, 118 N. Third St., Philadelphia. View the catalog at www.emmagardnerdesign.com.