We’re no strangers to placing an area rug on top of the drab and boring wall to wall carpet in our apartment.  Afterall, we are renters and it is a great way to spice up your living space.  But whether you have wall-to-wall carpet or hard woods (lucky!) or you are a renter or homeowner, you can use an area rug to complete your design vision for a room.  Tie in paintings, fabrics, wall colors–add interest.  You can do it!

Let’s take a look at the area rug in our current living room:

Obviously, this baby is making a major design statement.  It’s not trying to be too subtle, although the zebra print is more muted than the classic black and stark white–which was on purpose.  It adds interest, but doesn’t overpower the other things happening in the room.  It’s placed on a diagonal so the chairs and couch in the weird shape of our front room feel more connected.  Without that area rug, placed just so, our living room would feel incomplete.

Removed the rug with photoshop–aka the worst photoshop job you’ll ever see.

See?  Something is missing.  Things feel disconnected.  The rug has gotta stay.  And thank goodness, because we love that thing.