Basic Designing Tips
The following is a brief article discussing the basic and most important points when considering purchasing a rug or carpet and some of the primary concerns when designing your interior.
Basic Designing Tips
One should begin to design a room with the floor covering, whenever possible, particularly if one desires an expensive old carpet. It is not practicle to look for a vintage or antique rug to blend with a swatch of fabric. And realistically speaking, with the diverse market of paints, fabrics and other materials available today, one can easily establish an effective decorating palette when drawn from a rug or carpet that is likely far more scarce.
Non-descript, pale carpets are highly desireable in the decorator trade because the vast majority of designers begin with busy drapery and upholstery fabrics and then purchase the carpet. This is often the sign of a poor decorator. It is also an easy-way-out for the decorator that lacks talent in properly balancing colors for a rich and deeply satisfying result.
Start with a beautiful carpet and then search for all the other appointments to compliment it. The rug does not have to match the other elements exactly, and fine detailing is sometimes more important than precisely complementing colors. However, the style of the carpet should parallel the feeling of the neighboring textiles, including other rugs. Delicate upholstery and drapery design normally matches ornate, formal rugs and informal fabric patterns harmonize with casual, often geometric weavings. Semi-formal carpets are usually compatible with either formal or informal rugs and furnishings.
Intricate patterned fabric ordinarily blends with a less-detailed, more open-designed carpet. More complex upholstery designs generally coordinate with complicated rug patterns only if colors are very closely correlated. Although one should not put a coarse sisal mat next to French rococo furniture, one may place an inexpensive carpet adjacent to an expensive piece of furniture, if they complement one another stylistically.
The dining room rug must be large enough for the chairs to slide back and forth without catching the selvedges and ends. A minimum of two feet of carpet should surround the table, if possible. An overall rather than central medallion design is preferred for this room, and the rug should have an interesting and powerful border. The center field design is rather unimportant and may be simply a prosaic repeat pattern. Piled carpets are better than flatweaves, needlepoints, or Aubussons as these latter rugs and carpets are generally too delicate for the movement of chairs.
Any sized rug may be used in any room in which it can fit, and there are no fixed rules for designing an area. A small piece may lie under a table in the corner of a large room, or an area may be filled with scatter rugs. Rug lovers will frequently put discrete or disjunctive weavings adjacent to one another.
The bedroom normally requires small to medium sized weavings around the bed, or one large overall designed carpet that covers most of the room. The area rugs may be related in either or both color and design. They should preferably be of high quality and special beauty because it is always nice to wake up to an exalting carpet or rug.
A rug with a central medallion may be used in the living room but is easier to decorate with an overall designed piece. The medallioin is often difficult to center below a coffee table or parallel to a fireplace or mantlepiece. Ideally, the living room carpet should have a lovely main field and an alluring border.
If a section of the rug must be cut and removed to accomodate a fireplace, it should be retained for reattachment, if necessary, at a later date. If the piece is lost, the value of the carpet is significantly reduced. The edge of the rug that encircles the fireplace should be bound by hand to prevent unraveling.
The hallways may require a light-colored piece to brighten up a dark area. Long wide runners, if required, are hard to find, so a pair of matching, or closely related, pieces should be placed one after the other as a substitute.
A heavily trafficked foyer may require a strong, thick and dark-colored carpet that will stay clean longer. Often a dense, intricate pattern will not show dirt as easily as an open field design.
This essay is quoted and edited from J.R. Azizollahoff's "The Illustrated Buyer's Guide to: Oriental Carpets."
