Warm winter rugs

Winter brings forth warm thoughts about keeping oneself cosy within one's home for the better part of each day. And, it is all the more important that the accessories within your living room add to the cosy ambience. One way to do it is to add comfortable rugs that add to the warmth within.

“A rug is a great place to start when adding layers to your home to make it all nice and cosy for winter,” says Jodi Hall, visual manager of New York-based West Elm. “It’s also an easy reference when deciding on other pieces, like cushions and throws. Just work with the colours of your rug and you can’t go wrong.”

Choosing a rug can feel a bit daunting, but it needn’t, says Jodi. Start by deciding what floor plan is best for your space. For instance, if you’re looking for a living room rug there are two tried-and-tested layouts. The first is referred to as the ‘classic’, and it’s where you have a sofa or armchairs against a wall. Here, you want the rug to be big enough to fit under the front legs of the furniture, but not stretch as far as the wall. The second is known as the ‘floating’ layout, where your furniture is in the centre of the room. For this, choose a rug large enough to fit under all four legs of each piece of furniture.

Both these layouts work because the furniture is connected to the rug in the right proportions to the room. So everything is visually anchored and balanced. Bedrooms often stump people, but a large rug under the bottom two thirds of the bed always looks good.

Next things to consider are colour and pattern. If the room already has lots going on, a solid colour or neutral rug will bring things down to earth. But if your sofa and other pieces are quite simple, a patterned rug will make them pop.