When my parents built their house, the trend was to have wooden floors downstairs and wall to wall carpet upstairs.
My parents chose light oak floors for the living areas, and a no pile carpet for the bedrooms and hallway on the top floor.
My father despised what he called “bourgeois taste” and refused to get a living room rug. He said he preferred the “clean” look of the wooden floors.
In the foyer, he placed a rectangle of the upstairs carpet that he cut out from the remnants. The edges were uneven and the corners curled up. People often slid or tripped on it.
My grandmother, on the other hand, always had beautiful rugs. She could not conceive of a living room, or a foyer, without one.
Our Rugs
When setting up our first home after my husband and I were married, I wanted to have beautiful rugs.
Back then my main criteria when shopping for items for the home were colors and price. The beautiful rugs we got never worked for us.
I could not understand why my grandmother’s rugs always stayed in place, while ours were constantly moving out of place, even after I bought rug pads or non-skid tape. She had never had to put anything under her rugs – I knew that.
I had never seen curled corners in the rugs my grandmother had in her home either.
How did she do it?
High Quality Rugs
Through Feng Shui, I learned to reject synthetic materials, such as polyester, because they are dead in terms of chi (the life force).
I wanted to avoid materials made from petroleum so I eventually gravitated to rugs made of natural materials, such as wool.
To get the beautiful sensation under our feet when walking barefoot, but still be able to clean our rugs deeply, we got rugs with a half inch pile.
I also chose hand-tufted wool rugs, which are a lot more dense than machine made synthetic rugs.
These choices made a big difference. These natural rugs are much heavier than their synthetic counterparts, so they are less likely to slide and the corners don’t turn up.
After years of use, I can see no difference between the areas of high traffic and the areas less trampled on, so the rugs last much longer – an unexpected blessing.
No Pre-Faded or Distressed Rugs
There is a current fashion trend to get rugs that have been “pre-faded” or distressed — made to look old even before you even buy them. Some people feel these rugs give “character” to a space. Feng Shui disagrees.
In Feng Shui, we want your home to tell the truth. Any rug or piece of furniture made to look like it’s old and faded, as in the “shabby chic” style, is not telling the truth. Avoid these items.
Rug Shapes
Most of the time a rectangular rug will do.
Round rugs only work for oversized spaces. For example a round foyer rug is good for a large foyer that connects more than two rooms in a home.
A round or oval living room rug works when your living or family room is so large that the corner chairs can be placed at an angle.
You Don’t Have to Break the Bank
This is how much our family paid for rugs recently:
- $200 for the living room rug
- $20 for the foyer rug
- $50 for the hallway runner
The fanciest of them all is the foyer rug, made of wool and silk.
We got these at a salvage store. They had some minor imperfections on the bottom side that I was able to fix easily and fast.
In the Feng Shui Dream Home Creation Lab we’ve spent the last month helping participants create Magnificent Foyers, which included how to choose the perfect foyer rug for each of them. All the lessons and critiques we did are recorded and available for new students to review as they join.
Our next topic is Passionate Living – living rooms, family rooms, great rooms and dens.
What about you? Will you join us so we can help you turn your current home into a dream home? You can enroll any time. If you’re interested, or curious, please learn more about this group program here: https://feng-shui-for-us.teachable.com/p/feng-shui-dream-home-creation-lab
Do you prefer one-on-one help?