Learn how to coordinate rugs in an open floor plan. 

My dining room is open to my living room/office, kitchen and entry way. All of those rooms have crazy colored rugs. Choosing a rug for my dining room that coordinates with the other rugs took a little thought. Today, I’m sharing how I chose a rug to coordinate with my other crazy rugs. 

I’m redoing my dining room as part of the One Room Challenge.

Twice a year, Linda invites us to join as guest particpants to make over a room in just 6 weeks. Check out the 200+ other participants and the 20 featured designers for lots of eye candy.

Week 1: Before Photos and Plans

Week 2: How to Paint a Small Room

As a reminder, here are my plans. The rug choice changed. See my final choice below!

Week 3 Progress

Let’s just say that a lot of online shopping happened this week. And I have a PSA that everyone should know:

IKEA finally has decent ecommerce!! I ordered my entire Besta cabinet order and paid only $9 for shipping! I might never go to IKEA again!! Time is short right now and I don’t have a day to waste shopping. Thank goodness for internet shopping!

My IKEA cabinet arrived and I put it together yesterday afternoon. So many boxes! But the soft close hinges are amazing.

I’ve decided to add built-ins to the room, so the cabinets were also purchased. Bases have been built. I’m using stock wall cabinets and building shelves above them around my French doors. Because why not add a complicated build to a simple room redo?

And I chose a rug.

Still to do:

• Finish IKEA Besta hack
• Build built ins and paint them
• Stencil ceiling and add trim
• Order more chairs
• Dye and hem curtains
• Move furniture inside from garage

I plan on spending the next 2 days working, so next week I should have some nice progress to show.

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How to Coordinate Rugs in Adjoining Rooms

Whether your house is open concept or you just want to know how to pick rugs for adjoining rooms, it take a little bit of planning to have a cohesive look. My personal preference is bold, colorful rugs. I love how well they hide dirt (I have a labrador who sheds like crazy and 2 kids, plus I live in the country surround by mud apparently.) They’re inexpensive, so if they got ruined, I wouldn’t be out of tons of money. And they make me happy.

Coordinating rugs doesn’t have to be hard. Use some of these guidelines to get you started. Decorating “rules” are not set in stone. Breaking them is part of the fun.

Mix, Don’t Match

I’m not a fan of anything matching. Matching rugs* would look as bad as a 3 piece living room suite from the discount furniture store. It would be pretty boring if all of my rugs were the same. They aren’t even the same for my runner (due to a shipping error) and I love it!

*If you choose neutral rugs, matching looks fine. Maybe layer some smaller rugs on top for added interest.

Choose Similar Colors

Every rug in my house is tied together through color. They almost all have teal or pink in them.

Choose A Similar Vibrancy

All of my rugs are similar bright colors. I used to have a gray rug in my living room and I didn’t love it the way I love these bold choices. 

Choose Similar Pattern Types

All of these rugs are vintage style rugs. If geometric is your thing, do geometric. If you love abstract rugs, choose all abstract rugs.

Can you break a few of these “rules”? Of course you can! Buy what you love. It’s your home!

Tips for Finding Good Deals on Rugs

• Shop on holidays. Most stores offer discounts on any holiday weekend. Black Friday is a great day to get amazing discounts. But normal bank holidays are great too. Veteran’s Day is coming up in November. But there might be Halloween deals as well. Stores love a reason to hold a sale.
• Shop around. Sometimes you can find the exact rug at more than one place at different prices. For instance, the rug I have in my hallway can be found at Amazon, Overstock and RugsUSA. (They are normally named differently at each shop, so search for the color of the rug to find it.)
• Check your local Home Goods or TJ Maxx stores. They often have amazing deals on rugs.

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