How to Make Any Home Into a Beachy Oasis with a Coastal Area Rug + 24 Shoppable Picks

Let’s take a look at 24 coastal area rugs that are sure to inspire. 

Nautical area rugs

Coastal style is all about the ocean. A good place to start bringing the feel of the coast into your interior design is with artwork and wall colors that evoke images of the ocean. From a literal photograph of a lighthouse in Maine to a highly textured painting that mimics the look of choppy water, the range of options for calling to mind the open water are as vast as the ocean itself. 

What makes a nautical area rug?

Besides water, the two things that make up the ocean are color and texture. Take those two elements as a starting point when looking for nautical area rugs. Although lighter blues and greens are most common along the shore, nearly every shade of blue is represented out across the ocean. 

This variety of colors gives you a lot of room to work with when it comes to finding a coastal area rug that fits into your interior design’s overall color palette. And the look of sunlight rippling through shallow coastal waters is easily found in area rugs with a diamond pattern, while smooth, rippling waves are suggested by stripes and speckled patterns. 

Beachy area rugs

Any coastal home needs elements of the ocean, but it also needs elements of the beach. And an area rug is the ideal way to bring beach vibes to your coastal interior design. After all, what is a beach if not the area rug of the coast? And best of all, area rugs don’t get everywhere the way sand tends to. 

What makes a beachy area rug? 

Your options for how to incorporate the colors of the coast with your area rug come in as many varieties as there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. But we’re not talking about every color of the rainbow here–it’s all about the light and medium earth tones. Think ecru, tan, beige, khaki, and chestnut. 

Stick to the lighter side if you’re after white sand beaches of Florida’s Gulf Coast or the cliffs of the New England Atlantic Coast. Go with more of a medium brown to give the appearance of California’s beaches. You can also opt for a rug with a wavy patterned weave to deepen the windswept dune feel of your coastal area rug. 

Coastal-inspired area rugs

Not every element of coastal interior design needs to be a literal representation of the coast itself. After all, coastal design is as much about what the homes, shops, boats, docks, and other elements on and around the coast look and feel like as it is about the coast itself. 

What makes a coastal-inspired area rug?

To put it simply: following your gut and finding that I-don’t-know-it-just-works vibe is the key to finding the right coastal-inspired area rug for you. An area rug that features bright white paired with saturated navy blue is a good way to feature that classic color scheme of coastal homes. 

Textures that remind you of fishing nets or the various ropes dangling from the sides of boats are easy to find in area rugs and can turn your living room into your own private fishing village. If all of this is still too literal, go with an abstract design that makes you feel the sunshine of a warm day on the coast, or the feeling of a whole coastal town at once, or just the idea of the ocean.