Living Room Area Rug – Picking One Out: My Total Nightmare

My trying to pick a living room area rug seems logistically like it should not be the worst job in my entire living room remodel. It is though. It is my nightmare. I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, using-what-I-have-to-make-it-work, do-it-your-selfer that just hopes for the best. When people ask me how I feel about how any of my rooms turn out my general reply is: “Well its WAY better than it was!” I am not an interior designer!

Usually my spaces do turn out better than I hope. (But that’s saying almost nothing as my hoping for the best, admittedly, comes with pretty low expectations.)

I do love how some of my spaces have turned out though and they have given me at least a sliver of confidence moving forward…

Until I thought about the area rug in my living room.

Lodi came into my life several months ago and he wanted to buy me an area rug for my living room. At the time I had not yet painted or done anything to the room. In fact he didn’t even know I had FULL OVERHAUL plans and my “area rug” had been a little rag rug that was barely big enough to reach all the feet of my coffee table.

Me: Not yet.
Lodi: Not yet?
Me: I have plans.
Lodi: No area rug?
Me: There will be an area rug just not yet.

There was NO WAY I could have ever picked the right area rug until right now. I had choices to make on the fabric of the skirt on my sofa table and the fabric for my coffee table and until I hung my Grandma’s quilt and combined all of that with the wall color and sofa color…

I don’t even really feel capable of making the “right choice” now with all that in place but there was NO WAY I could have done it back then.

He was totally right though this room absolutely needs an area rug! He just needed to know that I knew that and that there was a plan.

The plan, unfortunately, is me panicking over a damn area rug.

Its been five months since we had that conversation and Lodi has proven that when I say “not yet” he believes me and never brings it up again. He gets me.

So when I told him it was time for an area rug I wasn’t sure what his response would be. Did he just shrug and not think about it again? Or did he just not vocalize because he knew it wasn’t time yet?

He proceeded to take me to the nearest Menards with me protesting the whole way.

Me: You know it has to be right… I won’t settle.
Him: That’s the sweetest thing you ever said about me.
Me: I’m serious about the rug.
Him: Me too!
Me: This could be hours of accomplishing NOTHING. Taking NOTHING home.
Him: As long as you take me home with you I don’t care.
Me: *growls*
Him: This is gonna be fun!

I don’t like shopping and I HATE spending money.

Most especially when I don’t feel qualified to get the right thing and fear I will make the wrong choice on an expensive and important purchase! And even more especially when its basically a gift to me paid for by someone else!

My Nightmare.

I spent a lot of time on Amazon thinking about this rug and just looking at thousands of different choices. I was caught between a couple of issues. One is I would LOVE a braided rag rug BECAUSE this is a 100 year old farmhouse. The other is I would LOVE a shag rug BUT this is a 100 year old farmhouse…

I get caught here a lot with wanting to respect the age of my home but also get what I want because, ya know, I live here.

This was all made WAAAAAAAAY worse by my fabric choice on my coffee table. Do I love the fabric I tufted on to my coffee table? Of course I do – or I wouldn’t have used it. However it made finding the right area rug much harder because its fricking wild.

So I have blue or gray and white Moroccan trellis (pillows and lamp shade), ivory and white stripes (skirted sofa table), crazy pretty paisley in blue, white and yellow (coffee table), my Grandmother’s quilt hanging on the wall (Mostly gray-greens), a big gray sofa AND a pretty hardcore yellow paint color everywhere.

Its kind of a lot.

I feel like I’m on the edge of tipping right over into crazy town. (And its up for debate on whether I’m talking about the design of my living room or my sanity at this point.)

I don’t like solid area rugs. I think they can look like weird puddles that make coffee tables float. On top of that they show EVERYTHING.

But if I’m going to have a pattern than its going to have to be pretty damn subtle because the craziness of my coffee table is going to be sitting right in the middle of it.

What I wanted to do was touch base to the neutral skirt on the sofa table. The fabric I chose for the skirt is ivory and beige stripes and has cute little tassels. I love the brightness of white but I felt I had enough of it in the room and needed something neutral for the sofa table.

I started feeling the same way about the rug.

FINALLY I was getting somewhere!

The sofa table skirt is a unique “color” in this room of contrasts. Its a beige. I HATE beige. In my mind the only time brown is acceptable is if its a stained wood. HOWEVER, I chose it here in this application to be subtle and toned down against all the rest I’ve got going on here.

Because it is the only “beige” it felt a little lonely to me and really seemed to be my answer. An ivory area rug complete with tassels and everything! Just like the skirt on my sofa table!

I did not find it in Menards however I DID find it on Amazon! Viola! I think it was the right choice!