Outdoor Rug for the Dining Room

Sometimes you have to try something to realize it is wrong. That is how it went with finding a dining room rug. I am a big fan of Candace Olsen and she always brings multiple rugs to try in the room before deciding. Well us normal people don’t usually have the means to buy three rugs to try all at once.  For me it was a much slower process.

First I tried a rug we already owned. We got this yellow and gray beauty at the Room & Board outlet. It used to live in our old living room along with our happy yellow Anson chairs. We first tried it in our new office where the Anson chairs are now, but it interfered with the desk chair. Before we made any plans for the dining room, we tried it in there too. It was too small. At only 5 x 8, it did not leave enough room to pull chairs out around the 3 x 6 foot dining table we had. I think the rule of thumb is the rug should extend 18-24″ on each side of the table. That means I need a closer to an 8 x 10. Okay, so I knew that, but I just loved this rug so much I did not want to believe it. We will find a new home for this rug when we finish our basement.

 

Try number two was kind of an impulse buy from Home Goods. I loved the colors (in the store). It was an 8 x 10 for $299. I splurged and brought it home.  You can see in the picture above it was a much better fit size-wise.  We put it under the table and lived with it for a week.  It was nice, but too green.  It was like a horrible pastel version of the bold teal walls.  Back to Home Goods it went.  Then there was no rug for a while.

Another trip to Home Goods over a month later and I stumbled on an amazing indoor/outdoor rug.  It was an 8 x 10 for $129.  I could not resist.  It was a natural brown/grey color and borderless.  I thought it would offer the perfect subtle covering to the floor and let the teal walls have all the attention.

It has an over-sized damask pattern woven into the rug.  It is really all the same color, but the woven pattern gives it a very subtle contrast.  The rug is 100% polypropylene.  It will be easy to keep clean (although this is our formal dining room, we do have two boys under 4).

The new slipcovered chairs play off the damask pattern on the rug.  The room is really starting to come together now…a far cry from that image at the top of this post.