How to Coordinate Rugs: Expert Tips & Color Matching Ideas

Adding an area rug can completely transform a room. The color, texture, and pattern of a rug complement or contrast with all the other decor in your space, from the floor to the wall color to the furniture.

But how do you ensure you like the transformation you’re about to trigger? Choosing rugs that coordinate (or thoughtfully contrast) with the rest of your space requires a little pre-planning.

Depending on what you choose to do, you could have your rug steal the show, highlight and enhance the rest of your decor, or even create a whole new sense of space within space. It comes down to how you put it all together.

Don’t worry: you don’t have to figure out how to coordinate rugs on your own. Here’s a little expert guidance on harmonizing your rug’s color, texture, pattern, and style with the rest of your decor to achieve something magical.

Highlight Other Parts of the Room

When you coordinate the color of a rug and flooring so that the two blend together, you can naturally draw attention to other areas of the room instead — this is a technique museums and art galleries use all the time.

If your design goal is to highlight a part of the room other than the floor, such as designer furniture or your own stunning piece of wall art, try blending your rugs and flooring to ensure your decor doesn’t steal eyes away from your main attraction. 

To add to this effect, try choosing a solid color scheme for your floor and rug that contrasts with the decor you’d like to attract attention toward. For light-colored wood or tile floor designs, consider rugs of similar tones, like Conch, Mayan Tan, or Edgewood. For dark floors, look for rugs in Ebony, Reef, or similar colors.

Idea: Amplify your highlighting even more by using a rug like one in the Wave Wool Sisal Rug collection to literally “point” at the elements of the room you want to stand out. Combine this use of texture with deliberate color contrast to gently guide your visitor’s eyes to exactly where you want them to be.

Make the Rug and Floor Stand Out

If you’d rather feature the rug as one of the room’s standouts instead of other pieces, then you can choose a rug color and texture that stylishly contrasts with the floor. You could even use patterned rugs to make the complement or contrast even more evident.

The contrasting colors of your rugs and flooring will draw eyes immediately to the rug and highlight the thoughtfulness of your color scheme. Drawing attention to the rug will also help you emphasize detailing in the flooring. 

If you have a natural hardwood floor, for example, contrasting the color of its finish with a rug will help grant its grainwork an extra pop. You can even double down on this contrast with texture and pattern to create a dynamic vibe that will help your space feel alive. 

Feel like getting really bold? You can even purposefully contrast multiple colors, textures, and patterns within a single space to create a whole new sense of flow and harmony. This is called opposition rhythm, and it can open your eyes to possibilities you may never have considered before.

Idea: If you have light or neutral color carpeting on your staircase, try adding a darker runner rug in wool, sisal, or jute to create a beautiful contrast that will help transform your stairs from functional to fashionable. Consider these five examples to get you started.

Try Layering Rugs

Layering rug colors and patterns in an otherwise neutral room can be its own bold fashion statement. Experiment with different rug features like colors, textures, and sizes to create interesting overlapping contrasts. Center decor and furniture around different sets of rugs within a single space to create “sub-areas” in larger rooms like your living room or dining room. Layer different natural fiber rug materials like sisal and jute to bring out the best in both and add dimension to your space.

Every time you add a new rug to a space, you’re fundamentally changing its aspect and mood. For example, adding several wool rugs to a bedroom makes it feel even more cozy and sleepy, while adding jute or seagrass rugs could give it a more relaxing lounge vibe.

Idea: Try layering rugs of different sizes and materials to create an interesting contrast. For example, you could put down a large, rectangular hemp rug first and then layer lighter and darker jute rugs on top of it to create an eye-pleasing combination of colors and textures.

Size Your Rug for Effect

The size of your rug is yet another dimension you can experiment with to see how it affects your interior design. Try placing numerous small rugs in a space to create a busy but connected feeling, or invest in one large rug to bring everything together.

Smaller rugs and runners allow you to showcase the richness of a warm wooden floor while increasing the visual size of the room. They can also help to delineate areas of the home in open floor plans. Meanwhile, larger rugs can help connect spaces in your home and unite your decor around a central theme.

Idea: Contrast your room’s decor with the size of your rug. If you have a lot of small furniture in a space, try placing a large rug around it to bring it all together. If you have a few, large pieces of decor, accentuate their presence with small rugs.

When it comes to coordinating rugs, you’re only limited by your imagination… and the quality of the rugs you can find. We have that second part covered; just head over to our online customization page to design the perfect rugs for your next great idea.