New Living Room Rug

I have been half-assedly looking for a new Living Room rug for about a year now.  There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the one I had, you know, except for the fact that I HATED IT!!!After I got new sofas, the rug just didn't look right anymore...the colors in it, worked much better with a cream sofa.  Sadly, it just wasn't in the budget to replace at the time, so I made do as I looked around for the right replacement. 


BEFORE:

(Far too busy for this space)

 

To be fair though, in addition to just looking terrible, it was really quite dirty.  I mean I vaccumed it regularly, but having lived with three pets at one point, and the amount of dust we get being a walk-out home backing onto a busy main road.... things get dirty in here.  I mean, what is it with pets preferring to eat their food/barf on soft surfaces?  That can't possibly be just MY pets?  Not to mention the gross looking stain from when someone who will remain nameless decided to steal a piece of Strawberry Rhubarb pie when I was out, and eat it on the rug.....

Just before Christmas, I found a beautiful one at HomeSense.  It was absolutely gorgeous - a combination of a watercolor painting/kilim style pattern in the most beautiful combination of blues and whites.  Plus, it was soooo soft - like silk to the touch.  But of course it was over my budget.... So I added it to my Christmas list and hoped that I would get it, or a gift card for a portion of the cost, but sadly got neither.  But when I kept thinking about it, I decided  "the hell with it!" and went to buy it anyhow, but sadly, it was gone...


Then today, I popped by Ikea to pick something up for a project I am working on and figured I would pop by rugs - you know, just to have a look.  Wouldn't you know it, they had a brand new rug - the Vidstrup that was EXACTLY the colors I had in my house:  White, Grey, Turquoise and Teal.
At only $99 for a 5x7(ish) rug, It was definitely an alright price point, so I  figured I would take it home, try it out and see how it looked, and if it wasn't right, then I'd simply return it.

Well, of course the first thing I did when I got home was get the old one out of there.  In fact, I was in such a rush that I didn't even grab a BEFORE picture, I just clumped that thing up in a pile in the kitchen to get it out of the way.

Sure enough, as soon as I lay out the new one - I knew it was the right fit.  The colors were absolutely perfect matches for the greys and blues already in the space.  While the pattern (geometric) wasn't exactly what I was picturing in my head - it just seemed to work!  I was a little worried that a geometric rug would read too "Ikea" or "first place".  But seeing it here, I focus more on the colors matching than the pattern, so I hope others will too!

Feeling the rug in store, I was a little concerned there was too much nylon in the pile and that maybe it wouldn't be soft as it felt kind of bristly to the touch, but underfoot it is nice and soft.  Definitely more plush than what we had before.  Finley spent a good portion of her evening sleeping on it, so I think it passes the comfort test.

Now, I know that it is the Rule of Thumb for a lot of Designers to have at least the front legs of all furniture in a room on a rug, but I don't really follow rules.  With as wide as this room is, I'd also need a MUCH larger rug and I'm cheap.  Plus, I actually like the look of having the dark floors border the rug and I really just like it to ground the coffee table so it's not floating in the middle of the wide room by itself - like a little rug island.  :)

So, all in all, I am happy with the rug for the time being.  I mean, I will probably still always been on the look out for a more luxe, investment rug that's a little lot more glam but this serves my purpose now.

AFTER

What do you think?