Two rugs can look almost identical in a photo. Then one turns up with a firm woven back and the other is soft enough to fold. One needs spot cleaning. The other can go in the wash. If you’re buying for the spot under the kitchen table, that difference might matter more to you than the pattern.
A rug is a surprisingly awkward thing to send back. It pays to spend a few minutes with the measurements and the small print while it’s still somebody else’s problem to roll it up.
Measure the bit of floor the rug needs to cover
Start with the furniture where you normally keep it. In a sitting room, mark out a rectangle with string or masking tape suitable for your floor. See whether it reaches the front feet of the sofa and chairs, and where the edge would fall on the route you walk through the room. If you’d rather keep tape off the floor, a sheet of newspaper at each corner will do. Then go and sit down. The view from the sofa is the one you’ll have most evenings.
Say your sofa is 205 cm wide. A 160 × 230 cm rug laid with its long edge parallel to the sofa would extend about 12.5 cm beyond each arm if you centred it. That gives you something to work with when the listing says ‘medium’. For a dining room, pull a chair out as far as you do when you stand up. Measure to where the back legs land. That’s the bit of floor people often leave out.
Open the door.
If it swings over the rug, check the gap at the lowest point. Ask for the total thickness when door clearance is tight. A listed pile height of 7 mm describes the fibres above the base. The base and any underlay take up room too. For a runner with long fringe or a rug going into an alcove, it’s also worth asking whether the listed length includes the fringe.
Give the colour a second look
A creamy beige rug might look lovely against white walls in a product photo and surprisingly yellow next to your grey sofa. A pile rug can even look darker from the other end of the same room because the fibres catch the light differently. Look through the flat product shot, the close-ups and any customer photos you can find. If one shows a cooler colour and the rest look warm, that’s worth asking about before you choose.
Do it with the actual room in mind. What colour is the floor? Is the rug going under a window or in the corner where you always have a lamp on? If the shop offers a swatch, look at it in both daylight and lamplight. If you’re asking for a photo, name the exact colour you want. A seller can be more helpful when they know you’re choosing between ‘sand’ and ‘natural’ than when the question is just whether the rug is beige.
Check that you’re looking at the right size, too. A border or medallion can take up a different proportion of a runner than it does on the large rectangular rug shown in the main photo. Ask for a picture of the shape you’re ordering if the pattern placement matters.
Ask to see the back
A clear photo of the reverse and a close-up of an edge can tell you quite a bit about what you’re paying for. Look at the corners and see how neatly the stitching or binding covers the edge. On a hand-knotted rug, you can often see the design on the back in the individual knots. A hand-tufted rug usually has a cloth backing covering the adhesive that holds the tufts in place. A flatweave can show the pattern on both sides. Take the photo as a clue and check what the seller says about how the rug was made.
‘Handmade’ is worth following up if it’s the reason you’re paying more. Hand-tufted and hand-knotted are two different ways of making a rug, and both can be described as handmade. Look separately for the pile fibre, the backing and the construction. ‘Persian-style’ describes the design. If you care where it was made, look for a separate country-of-origin detail.
You can keep the message short.
Could you send me a photo of the back and the edge of the 160 × 230 cm rug in warm ivory? I’m trying to see how the edge is finished and how thick the rug is with its backing.
Picture what happens on a wet Tuesday
Think about who walks across the rug and what they bring with them. For a route from the garden door to the kitchen, a short-pile polypropylene rug with simple spot-cleaning instructions can be a sensible choice. For the floor beside the bed, a springy wool pile might be the thing you’re happy to spend a little more on. Wool can shed when it’s new, so it’s worth reading a few reviews if loose fibres would bother you.
What will your dog do with it? If there are big open loops and your dog tends to catch a claw in that sort of weave, try looking at short cut-pile rugs. If you like jute or sisal for the texture, think about how often the spot gets wet. A dry corner of a sitting room is an easier place for either fibre than the floor beside the dog’s water bowl.
On a smooth floor, check what’s on the underside and whether you’ll want a separate underlay. If you need one, choose an underlay suitable for your floor finish. It’s a small detail when you’re scrolling and a much bigger one if the rug shifts every time you walk past the sofa.
Read what the shop means by ‘washable’
‘Easy clean’ might mean wiping or blotting a mark by hand. If the rug is machine washable, check whether the whole thing goes in or whether there’s a removable cover that lifts off a separate pad. Then check the requirements for the size you’ll order. A small runner and a large sitting-room rug can have quite different washing-machine requirements.
Check your machine’s capacity against the instructions for the exact rug. That one detail can decide whether you wash it at home or carry it to the launderette. Look at the drying instructions while you’re there. If it needs to dry flat, picture where you’ll put it for the day. The spare room that already has an airer, a desk and a stack of boxes in it may be doing quite enough.
Read reviews from people who’ve lived with it
A review that says the rug arrived quickly tells you about delivery. Scroll a bit further for someone who’s had it on the floor for a few months. Does it creep on laminate? Do the corners lie flat? Does the pile still look even where everyone walks past the sofa? A sentence on one of those things can be more revealing than a row of five-star ratings.
If the reviews cover the whole range, look for someone who bought your colour or size. A review of the navy runner may be helpful for the feel of the rug. It’s a less useful guide to how the ivory one looks next to pale floorboards.
Get the full price for your size
Pick the size and colour before you compare prices. The amount advertised as ‘from £39’ might be for the smallest rug in the range. If you see the same design at two shops, check the product code, colour and dimensions so you’re looking at the same thing. Then add delivery to your postcode and any underlay you need.
Say one rug is £79, with £9.95 delivery and an £18 underlay. That comes to £106.95. A comparable £105 rug with delivery and underlay included works out £1.95 cheaper, even though the listing price is £26 higher. The maths takes a minute. It’s particularly useful when you have a few tabs open and every site puts a different number in big type.
Check the estimated arrival for that size as well. If you need the rug before people come round, the distinction between ‘dispatches in two days’ and ‘arrives in two days’ matters.
Work out how you’d send it back
Before ordering a big rug you’re unsure about, check whether the retailer supplies a return label or expects you to arrange the courier. If you’d be booking it, ask for the packed dimensions and weight. You need the measurements of the roll the courier will collect. The size of the rug spread out on the floor is a different thing altogether. Check how soon you need to tell the shop and how long you then have to send it.
Keep the wrapper.
When the rug arrives, unroll it in daylight and make sure it’s the colour and size you selected. Move the chairs as you normally would and try the door if it swings across the rug. Have a look with the lamps on later if the shade was the thing you were unsure about. Give yourself that chance to decide while the packaging is still in one piece.
Ready to browse?
If you’ve got the measurements and a rough idea of what you like, have a look at beUNIQ. Browse modern textures, classic patterns and Persian-inspired rugs, from hallway runners to larger sizes for the sitting room.
https://beuniq.co.uk/
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