Before You Buy A Rug, Try This Free Tool!

Are you looking to buy a rug? I was recently trying to decide about buying a rug for my bedroom. My house is FREEZING and the floor is so cold in the morning. It’s true that older houses can be a lot more drafty.

My current rug is a 6×9 but it feels really small and only large enough to go beside one side of the bed. Guess who get’s that side? Not me!

I was thinking about a new rug and trying to decide how big of a rug to get. Everything I read says “bigger is better”. How big is that? Enter my mother.

My mom asked me the dimensions of my room. That’s easy – 14 feet x 16 feet. I was trying to decide if I should buy a 9×12 or a 10×14.

The simple tool is graph paper or a ruler if you don’t have that, just a ruler and a pencil. You don’t need a fancy floor planner. Once I got my room on paper it was much easier to see. BUT in today’s technological world there are so many free room planners.

I tried planyourroom.com. Here are my two rug options. This took me about 10 minutes maximum to put into the software. You do have to create a login, but it was worth it.

My room has a king bed, a large armoire and a chair. I want both the chair and the bed (mostly) to be on the rug. Once you see it in black and white, it’s so clear. It really helped me to see it in black and white.

The 10×14 size will give me some rug on my side AND will be big enough to get the chair legs on as well. Each single line is one foot. Now I know what size, I needed to figure out which material.

What Rug Materials Are Best in a Bedroom

You want the rug in your room to be soft. I’ve had a natural fiber rug in my room, seagrass to be exact. It was really not that great. Cheap, but not comfy. It felt a little like sand paper.

Many of the natural fiber rugs are better suited for high traffic areas and places where you are wearing shoes. The softer options are wool ($$), cotton and synthetic material (polyester, nylon and polypropylene).

Wool rugs are a dream! I’ve owned a few hand me downs and they clean nicely and they are soft.

Cotton rugs are soft and inexpensive BUT they tend to get dirty and stained.

So, what’s the deal with synthetic rugs? They are in fact made from petroleum products. I was worried that they off-gas poison fumes. They are treated with fire retardants and stain protectors. Good news, fumes go away if you can hang the rug up outside for 48 hours. Other good news, they are dirt cheap. They don’t last as long but they are about 1/3 the cost of a similar looking wool rug.

Have you bought a rug for your bedroom? If so, which material did you settle on?

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