An Ode To The Rug

I’m a huge fan of the all-white walls at home.

For a start, it brings an incredible amount of light into the house. With white walls, no matter what the weather, you can be sure to have rays bounced around at any time of day. No joke, since moving in to an entirely white-walled house I’ve noticed I am happier, feel more motivated and sleep less: the increase in light has had a great effect on my mood. Chloe mentioned this after her recent move to a much lighter house and I nodded throughout her post… it really works.

If you’re after a clean and minimal look like mine, white is easiest option to build your Marie Kondo dream upon. With no fussy wallpapers and no wall colours competing with one another, even an interior design novice like me can create a simplified Scandinavian look.

White is also the most child-friendly colour to have on the walls of a family home. It may sound daunting but it’s clean, it’s practical: have you ever tried to bleach crayon off a beautifully-painted Farrow and Ball surface? Not a problem with Wicke’s finest white!

One other upside to my white scheme is the ease in which I can change the decor of the house. And this, fellow home lovers, is where my ode to the rug comes in.

A rug is the one thing in the world that can change the feel of a room more than a lick of paint. Easier to change than a carpet and with more freedom to go slightly wild with your choices of colours and patterns, a rug is a really quick and inexpensive way to freshen or alter the look of a room.

Now, when we moved house back in December I knew I wanted to do something and special with the hallway. I’d bought a marble-topped tulip table specifically for this room, something I’d coveted and saved up for. But when paired with the cork flooring the whole situation felt fairly cold, and the room echoed. It didn’t work.

And so I popped my year-old (and still adored) IKEA ALVINE RUTA rug underneath, but it still didn’t look right. The size and shape of the rug made the table look small: I wanted a square rug that would almost cover the entire floor, but square rugs aren’t that easy to come by and the floor space is MASSIVE… have you any idea how expensive big rugs are?! Eye-wateringly expensive, that’s how.

The ideal would have been a Persian rug, but again, the expense of one to cover the floor size would have ran me to about £3k (ouch), and if you’re spending that much on a rug I can’t imagine ever letting anyone eat food on the table above it. So to the drawing board it was.

The Safavieh Rug

I decided to take inspiration from the pink sofa. I love the pop of colour this brings along with my blue sofa to the otherwise white house, and wanted to carry that from the entrance hall through to the lounge. Size was still an issue though (why is it so hard to find good-value area rugs?!), until I came across Safavieh at Wayfair.

Safavieh specialise on mid-to-large colourful area rugs, and once I started looking through their collection I knew I’d find one to suit us. I spent a good few days thinking about the colours I wanted to match with the lounge – although the rooms are separated by sliding doors I keep them open – and decided bright and cheerful was the way to go. I’m a huge fan of uplifting flowers in the house so I wanted one I could compliment with blooms.

And as soon as I saw the Jade from Safavieh I knew it was the one. 

Bright enough to match the sofas and flowers, low-pile enough should an errant piece of food drop off the dining table, cosy enough to feel nice underfoot, big enough to suitably fill the room. I ordered it immediately, thinking the £244.99 price was particularly palatable for such a large piece.

Funny story: the rug actually arrived while we were away skiing, so my mum kindly took delivery for us.

“It’s very lovely!” she said, “but isn’t it a bit big?”. Having heard me wonder about a rug for the kids’ room she’d assumed it was going in there removed their beds, unrolled the rug and moved the furniture back in… whoops! Kudos to her, though – by the time we’d returned from The Alps the Jade had been removed from the bedroom and slipped into its rightful place under the marble table of dreams.

I love the rug in this room. Though I adore my white walls, I also like a colourful accessory, and I think my brightly coloured recipe books and floral touches really bring warmth and joy to the space. I keep my keys and change in a hand-painted bowl next to an oversized-Anglepoise lamp.

Vitra Eames 43 chairs add more white and light, as do the IKEA sideboard (actually a RAMSÄTRA TV stand) and inherited gold mirrors (thanks, Mum!). It’s a very warm and welcoming room to come home to, and I love it so much I’m considering replacing *THE* La Redoute rug in my bedroom with one from Safavieh (I like the Jenna and the Bellina).

Proof that a rug really can make a room, eh?