Decorating with area rugs is one of the fastest and most inexpensive ways of updating, beautifying, and transforming your home.   Whether you want to buy cheap area rugs made of synthetic fiber or the most expensive wool rugs on the market, you can find what you need online, often at sale prices.

Advantages of Decorating With Area Rugs:

• You can define areas within a room or unify an entire room.

• Rugs can be moved from one room to another so that a former dining room rug can end its life on the playroom floor.

• Use them seasonally and store them easily until needed again, and take them with you if you move to a new home.

• They protect wood floors and traffic areas on large carpets.
• Dramatic colors and designs can provide a focal point for a room.
• They add warmth to the look and feel of tile, slate, stone, and concrete.

• With unlimited styles, patterns, colors, and price ranges, you can find exactly what you need at affordable prices.

Pick An Appropriate Size

When you have decided where you want to place a rug, use masking tape to mark the corners and measure carefully.   If you can't visualize a carpet in the room, cut rolls of paper or cardboard or fold material to size and place it so that you are sure of what it will look like.   General rules are:

• If the rug is going to be a focal point, have equal amounts of bare floor showing on all sides or at least on two parallel sides.

• If unifying furniture, the front legs of each item should be on the rug.

• In the dining room, the rug should be big enough to allow all chair legs to be on it when you are seated at the table (i.e., it should extend eighteen to twenty-four inches beyond the table).

• Avoid rugs with center medallions or scenes if they are going to be partially covered by furniture.

• Have no more than two feet of empty rug extending beyond furniture groupings.

• You need not center a rug if it extends under furniture that is not centered (e.g., a bed pushed to one side of the bedroom).

• If you need a very odd size, have it custom made.

Find The Best Colors and Patterns

The colors of your rugs should be carefully coordinated with the room colors:

• Repeat the dominant colors or pick good accent colors.
• Dark colors make the room cozy; light colors help enlarge it.
• When in doubt, soft earth tones are very soothing and neutral.

• Patterns should not clash with other fabrics in the room, and a busy room should have a subtle rug pattern.  If you are hoping to liven up a bland room, an intricate design in brilliant colors is a great choice.

• When using more than one rug in a room, the colors and patterns must be well coordinated.  Some manufacturers produce companion rugs for that very purpose.

Choose From Countless Styles

There are so many style choices in rugs, you will find something to your liking no matter how strange your taste may be.   Oriental rugs will work in any home, and modern, contemporary rugs have a huge range of patterns and colors.   Check out the reliable manufacturers and importers online such as:

• Karastan
• Couristan
• Mohawk Industries
• Shaw
• Momeni

These major players in the industry can ship quality carpets right to your door, often at discount or wholesale prices.   You can shop by shape, specifying that you want to view only round or oval rugs, for instance, or you can ask for something unique like the tribal designs from the Southwest, or animal prints from a western collection.   Shag carpets are back in style and oriental rugs and country braided have never gone out.

Finding the best quality area rugs in the most decorative and suitable colors and designs is easy when you shop online.   Have fun!

About the Author:

Scott Gray is currently a freelance writer and enjoys providing tips to consumers who are in the market for all types of cheap area rugs, contemporary rugs and persian rugs.