A neatly designed home or living space offers a fulfilled experience for visitors and the residents alike. Surroundings are essential in creating positivity and vitality in the minds. Imagine waking every day to a disoriented home and resuming your work towards your goals with a repressed feeling of dissatisfaction. Studies have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the environment on mindset for growth and development.
Everything depends on how well you design the interiors, be it a small home or a huge mansion. The furniture, the wall decor or the kind of extended storage facilities determine the space utilization and aesthetics of rooms inside your house. One of the common mistakes that people make when it comes to interior designing is giving less importance to set a room to make the best use of it. Often when you buy a new home or rent out one, settling with whatever makes it accommodative or with those utilities that fit our old home makes it mediocre.
Out of all the interior design elements, carpets serve in two ways simultaneously by helping to keep the room clean and being a design pattern for the living space. Be it under the dining table or the coffee table of your living room, the choice of carpet creates the perfect space for one to get cozy in. Carpets come in different material types, such as nylon, wool, jute, etc. Depending on the material, the carpet is woven, knotted, tufted or stitched in other ways that seem fit to make them fit colorful living. In this blog post, you will be guided on how to decorate your room with the most classy and antique style type of all carpets, i.e., the oriental carpet.
Oriental Carpet: Making a comeback in style
Being the oldest of all the types, Oriental rugs can be traced way back in history for their origins. The historical evidence says less about the exact time of when it was made but more on how it had proven itself to be considered an art piece than something of minimal value invented to be stomped on for removing dust.
An oriental rug gets its name from having been hand-made majorly in Asia. Turkey, Iran, China, India, Russia, Pakistan, and Tibet are significant producers of oriental rugs.
Traditional Rugs: A Brief History
The Oriental rug came to be classified as a traditional rug because of its prominence in history and became famous to accentuate a luxurious internal space.
During the period between the middle age until the renaissance, oriental rugs were the most sought-after as they were exotic owing to the unique geometric patterns and color scheme. Oriental rugs still give a drop of luxury to modernist architecture by providing the right ambience and aesthetic value.
Things to consider while decorating with an oriental-inspired designer rug.
To decorate a beautiful living space and accent furniture with rugs, you must start by choosing an oriental rug with careful size consideration. The standard size of oriental rugs are as below:
- 2x3 feet
- 3x5 feet
- 4x6 feet
- 5x7 feet
- 6x9 feet
- 8x10 feet
- 9x12 feet
- 10x14 feet
Rugs with sizes starting from 2x3 feet to 6x9 feet are usually used in lobbies, kitchens, and bathrooms, which require smaller ones that serve the purpose and won't be a hindrance and low maintenance compared to the larger ones. As per standards, 8x10 rugs are ideal sizes for a six-seater dining table set. 9x12 and rugs measuring above 8x10 sizes are generally applicable for larger dining rooms, bedrooms and living rooms to accommodate multiple types of furniture such as the sofa, bedside tables and cocktail table.
The shape of a rug is determined by the shape of the room or furniture:
1. Rounds
2. Squares
3. Rectangular (runners)
Rounds and squares are good to go under round and square dining tables, a coffee table, or a cocktail table. As round shapes are hard to find, square or rectangular ones can still be used for a round-shaped table to offer an asymmetric look that is a part of modern furniture designing. Having said that, rectangular rugs or runner rugs are more often used to guide guests to an intended area inside a building. Foyers or hallways are decorated with coloured fun patterns that swiftly catch the guest's attention.
The living room is the one that most people give attention to in detail. Alluring patterns of oriental rugs are elegant and stunning for the furniture to sit above it, improving the room's total look. The basic thumb rule is to choose according to your will as there aren't any hard and fast rules to select one.
You might face a dilemma of choosing between modern decorating and traditional rugs. Oriental rugs with their historical depiction as intricate patterns might seem too elaborate for someone who likes to go after neutral living. The common concept that everyone might have is that, while you have opted for neutral colors and neutral furniture, oriental rugs are to be avoided. If you are someone with a taste for both art pieces and modern decorating, why would you want to compromise on one? It is always suggestible to decorate one room that showcases contemporary patterns and leave the rest, including the exteriors, to modern-day designs. Or you could go for mid-century modern decorating by mixing and matching ancient patterns with modern decor. An oriental rug can transform your rooms from boring to beautiful.
Prominent Oriental Rugs to go for
Three oriental type rugs are known for their quality and magnificence, namely Anatolian carpets, Egyptian Mamluk carpets and Persian carpets.
Anatolian Carpets
Anatolian carpets are Turkish carpets with floral designs and bold color. You might be pretty familiar with them as most retailers and roadside vendors primarily sell these rugs. These carpets are good to go with dark-coloured walls and floors. Typically woolen or cotton made, these carpets are handwoven with red, yellow, and blue hues. Plain blue wall paint and the same color floors or simply white-coloured wall and floor make Anatolian rugs stand out.
Egyptian Mamluk Carpets
First originating from Cairo, Egypt, and in the year 1250, a Mamluk Carpet is a luxurious one to own with its Motif patterns and medallion-shaped designs. Pale shades of bright red, blue, green and yellow are typically used and selected for a monochromatic look.
Persian Carpets
Predominantly made in Iran, Persian carpets are a charmer with even more complex designs when compared to an Egyptian Mamluk carpet. Handwoven with multiple colors, these are designed with floral motif patterns. Attributing to its arabesque patterns, these are often used as prayer rugs in various parts of the world.
Persian Gabbeh rugs, Bijar rugs and other tribal rugs are oriental rugs to consider for more picturesque, ornamental or tribal patterns.
Accentuate your Living Space Using Oriental Carpets- Ideas to Decorate
Oriental carpets are a collection of authentic and antique carpets that fit any decor type, be it modern or contemporary. Oriental rugs have always been the first choice for artists and historophiles alike. Interior designers choose quality oriental carpets for clients who wish to decorate their interior living spaces in antique style. Many sellers even offer custom design and additional patterns in oriental-inspired designer rugs to make the best fit for your living space needs.
You may consider hundreds of furniture arrangements, but choosing the wrong rug can place it all wrong and unconsciously lead to disorganized living. One of the biggest decorating mistakes is not considering the carpets' pattern, size, or color that suits the room and matches its interiors and instead solely going for what soothes the eye. Keep in mind the following factors while selecting an antique-styled rug to decorate the perfect space that you might be spending your quality time in:
Selecting the suitable material and types
It is a fact that the rug's material can control the temperature in your room. If the region of your residence is generally cold, you can regulate it with a carpet to make it cozier with any furniture you have.
Wool is known for its durability due to its water and fire resistance. If you want a carpet that can survive any harsh condition, choose a coloured custom wool rug. Silk-types are typically opted for giving the carpet a natural shine. Though silk is less durable than wool, its fine texture offers a smooth feel increasing the foot traffic as oriental area rugs.
Cotton is a conventional kind of material and is more affordable when making carpets compared to any other material. Its absorbent property serves well for dyes or colors to blend well with the material. Bathrooms and kitchens need good absorbent rugs. However, they are less durable because of the natural fibers. A kitchen rug should be selected to give prominence to comfort than to increase the kitchen look. The floor space between the rug and the kitchen countertop walls determines a perfect-fit carpet.
Modern-day materials are innovated with synthetic materials or other alternatives like sisal or jute to increase the flexibility in the manufacture and cost of rugs.
Establishing the type of rugs is essential to understand how it is best to fit for setting the required display of your space, and the cost is one of the significant determiners. While Hand-tufted rugs are attractive and come at affordable prices to fit well in a lobby or living room, hand-knotted rugs involve high-quality fibers like silk or wool priced at an expensive rate. Flat-weave rugs are thin with interwoven warps to make them suitable for a bathroom or a kitchen floor. Hooked rugs are hand woven but less expensive but add versatility to any neutral living space. Hide rugs are made from animal hair and skin but should be avoided in all cases for sustainable use of materials. Braided rugs are woven by tying fabric strips in criss-cross patterns for ultra-modern designs.
Selecting the right size and shape
An oversized rug can seem odd and create an off-the-mark impression. Small rugs will be hardly noticeable and may not serve the purpose of including them in the first place. Thus, choosing an oriental rug of the perfect size calls for awareness about your room's size, furniture, and other pre-determining factors.
As a first step, determine the space area where you intend to place the carpet. Then using masking tape or paper, mark the area and measure this marked area with an 18" border all around, between the walls and the carpet. Lastly, the shape and size of your rug can be further concluded by mapping the detailed description on standard sizes and shapes to the room size and furniture size and shape. Dining room rugs depend on the shape of the dining table frame. A square oriental carpet for a square dining table, a rectangular carpet for a rectangular dining table and a circular carpet for a circular one are the common ways to choose carpet for dining rooms.
Designs and colors to choose
Vintage-style rugs are unique in their way. The colors you select should be of the same color family as painted in the particular room. Any carpet suits well for rooms with white walls or birch-bark walls.
The designs for each room are carefully selected with the purpose they should serve. As you would have probably heard, " First impression is the best impression" the living room rug sets the standard of your living space even more than a hallway or lobby. Imagine a Turkish or Persian oriental rug as a bold piece with your selected color palette dream sofa and a coffee table. You can be sure how noticeable it can be. Bedrooms are the ultimate living space for comfort. A classy Egyptian Mamluk rug with pale hues will ensure to add extra warmth to your bedroom space. Fun patterns of a Turkish or Persian carpet can transform the children's room with a dash of vibrant colors. Durable materials are a matter of consideration for children's rooms that often need maintenance.
Contemporary runners carpets are generally chosen for narrow hallways or placed at the center of a wide hallway. Contemporary furniture with a contemporary designed runner rug makes the hallway elegant and stylish.
Last but not least, always weigh multiple factors that facilitate the space, such as the floor lamp, electric wire, window placement and so on, before planning to decorate your space with any carpet. When used as a single authentic piece or used as multiple rugs for a room, antique-style rugs are a thing of beauty and purpose when it comes to interior designing and decor to liven up the living space.
Antique Style Rugs: A symbol of class for your living space
Rugs can be a great way to add some extra personality and character to your living space. Not only do they provide comfort and warmth underfoot, antique style rugs and persian rug style can also be a symbol of class and sophistication. If you’re looking for an easy way to give your home décor a boost, consider investing in an antique rug.
