Braided rugs: Five great tips for choosing one for your home

Braided rugs: Five great tips for choosing one for your home

Donna Willis of Yankee Pride shared these no-fail tips for choosing the perfect braided rug for your home.

• Material. Wool is the most durable and cleanable, said Willis. It’s best for heavily trafficked areas like entries and family rooms. Cotton is softer and its colors are often more vibrant. Willis recommends these for bedrooms and bathrooms. Polypropylene, a synthetic material, works outdoors and in, won’t stain or mold, and may be hosed off. Both cotton and polypropylene also come in chenille, a texture that makes rugs fuzzy.

• Shape. About 85 percent of the rugs Yankee Pride sells are oval, the most traditional shape. Round rugs are also popular, said Willis. Rectangles and squares are fairly new to the market, and offer an updated twist on an old look, making them work in contemporary spaces. Note: If a room has a lot of linear pieces, it’s good to add a curve.

• Size. The number one reason rugs get returned, said Willis, is because customers got them too small. Before you order, use cardboard, newspaper (not this column) or sheets to make a template of the rug’s size on the floor. Relying on only a tape measure isn’t enough. When choosing a rug for under a dining table, add at least two feet to each side of the table, to give chairs pull-out room. In living areas, either have all furniture legs on the rug or none. (No legs on the rug makes it stand out more.

• Color. Get a sample before you commit, advises Willis. Most rug mills make rugs to order. They don’t have rugs sitting in warehouses waiting for your call. So if you make a color mistake, you will likely pay return shipping plus a restocking fee. I toyed with the idea of ordering a rug in custom colors for my daughter’s room, but when I got the fiber samples, and tried to braid my brain around how they would look entwined, I decided to leave the color-combining to the pros. “I’ve made custom-colored rugs for customers who knew exactly what they wanted, and they were very happy,” said Willis. “But in general, I tell customers to trust the mills. They have a trained eye for what works.”

• Ask for help. Willis works with a lot of customers who send her paint chips and fabric samples. “They get stressed, so I’m happy to spend time pulling samples. Then I’ll tell them: ‘These five will work.’ “