Rugs

How to choose a rug

A rug is the cheapest piece of furniture in the room and often the one that decides how the room reads. Get the size right, the texture right, and the placement right, and you've defined the seating area, softened the acoustics, and finished the floor in one move.

Size is the call most people get wrong, and it's almost always too small. The rule that works for living rooms: the rug should be big enough that the front legs of the sofa and the front legs of any armchairs can sit on it. A 160 by 230cm rug is the floor (literally) for a small living room. 200 by 290cm is the standard for most. 240 by 340cm is right for a larger room or an open-plan space. Buying smaller because the price drops is the mistake; the room reads patchy and the rug looks like a bath mat.

For a dining room, the rug needs to extend at least 60cm past the table edge on every side so chairs stay on it when pulled out. For bedrooms, you can either go big (a rug that runs the full width of the bed and out the sides and foot) or small (two runners flanking the bed). Half-on-half-off doesn't work.

Material dictates feel, durability and price.

• Wool is the long-term answer for living rooms and bedrooms: warm, durable, naturally stain-resistant, ages well. £200 to £800 for a standard size.
• Cotton rugs are lighter, washable on smaller sizes, and right for kitchens and high-traffic hallways.
• Synthetic blends (polypropylene, polyester) handle pets, kids and outdoor use. The good ones look indistinguishable from wool at a glance and cost a fraction.
• Jute and sisal add texture and read coastal or country, but scratch underfoot and stain easily.
• Outdoor rugs are typically all-weather polypropylene with UV resistance. Worth their own category for patios and conservatories.

Style and colour follow the room. Plain rugs in neutral tones are the safe spec when the sofa and walls are doing the work. Patterned rugs become the anchor when the rest of the room is quiet. If the room is already busy with prints, a flat-weave neutral works harder than another print would.

The brands and retailers we list

We pull around 16,000 rugs from across the UK retailers we cover.

The Range stocks the broadest selection in the value-to-mid bracket, with around 7,300 rugs covering plain, patterned, runner and outdoor styles. Strong on £30 to £150 ready-made.

Robert Dyas covers around 6,300 rugs, leaning into the high-street tier with patterned wool blends and washable cotton ranges under £200.

Choice Furniture Superstore and La Redoute UK sit at the upper-mid end. Smaller catalogues with properly designed pieces in wool, viscose and traditional knot-pile constructions.

Filter the grid above by colour, material, size or price to narrow things down, or browse the full rug range without filters to see everything in stock. Prices update daily.