Earlier this week, the new area rug for our living room arrived. You can read more about our decision making process here, but ultimately we went with the 10×14 Baxter area rug from Crate and Barrel in Indigo. And, whew, it has made a really big difference. Here’s how things were looking right before we started renovating the floors a couple months ago:

And here’s our (still very much in-progress) living room today:

I can only describe it as suddenly feeling alive and energized! It feels so much more like us, too. Going from an 8×10 to a 10×14 made the biggest difference, but also opting for a bold neutral color (like a good pair of blue jeans, I say) helped pave the way for us to inject more color into the room. Any color we want. Which could be why I finally broke out our Pendleton blanket that was gifted to us at Christmas (thanks Victoria and Jenn!) and whipped up a gallery wall.

To back-track, after the area rug arrived I was so anxious to unroll it just to see if I loved it as much as I hoped I would after ordering it online (I do!), but before we could even do that, we exercised some patience to prep and place the rug pad down. I am a recent rug pad convert and I can assure you, if you haven’t felt they were worth it or do anything–give them a try. They really do make a big difference! Some help with cushioning, keeping things straight and/or preventing movement, but they all extend the life of your rug. Since the Baxter was already super cushy, we went for the keeping-things-in-place option and ordered this 10×14 ultra non-skid rug pad from Amazon for relatively cheap. Your rug pad should be a couple inches smaller than your area rug on every side. I actually trimmed the length when it was still folded up so it went really fast, and then I spread it out and trimmed the ends:

And then, at last, we were able to roll out our new blue beauty.

The couch sits completely on the area rug, which adds to the luxe feeling under our feet. Even when I’m walking past the living room en route to somewhere else, I find myself side-stepping just to walk on it. It’s so soft and thick and although it is big and a bold color, the heathered effect tones it down while adding a comfortable/casual vibe and, bonus!–helps camouflage dog hair.

Obviously we’re still in the honeymoon stage over here, so I’ll have to write another review down the road to update you on how it is wearing and if we still love it as much as we do right now. It was not a cheap rug, but as of today, we feel it was worth every penny not only for how it looks and feels underfoot–but for the way it has transformed our home. Magic carpet, I tell ya.