What Size Rug? + How to Place It in the Bedroom

Rugs, if you’ve been around a bit you know I LOVE me some rugs.  All  shapes, sizes, colors and styles.  A fave spot for rugs is bedrooms.  Although honestly there isn’t a room that a rug doesn’t belong but that’s a convo for another day.  So today, let’s talk about how to place a bedroom area rug!

How to Place a Bedroom Area Rug

Should it go under the bed?  Away from the bed?  What size do I need?  Well folks I’m answering these Q’s for ya to take out the guesswork.

What do you mean placement?  How should it go?

There are a few options!

1.  You can bring it up underneath the bed and expand out from the sides and footboard.

2.  You can do 2 runners,  one on each side of the bed.

3.  You can have a really large rug that has all furniture on it.

Our bedroom is large and we have a king bed.  Here we created a seating area slightly apart from the bed.  I had a slightly smaller rug to work with, approx. 6’x10′ Moroccan rug.  My solution was to place it underneath the legs of the bench and out under the seating area, highlighting the chairs with the rug vs bringing the rug underneath the bed and leaving the seating area rug-less.

You can see how the rug expands out past the sides of the bed, this still visually frames it even though it’s not placed underneath.  This is a great option if you have a smaller room, or seating area, and a smaller rug.  Just be sure the sides extend out past the bed for balance.

Same bedroom with a different rug.  Here I removed the bench, brought the seating area back a bit and placed the rug underneath the bed.  This rug is larger at 8’x11′.  This is a much better size for the space.

Now looking at this pic I want to move it farther back haha.

Here is the same room as above, pre-makeover, but in this shot I layered 2 rugs.  I split the seating area and bed but wanted both to feel grounded and cohesive instead of 2 separate areas.  I didn’t have an extra large sized rug so I used a Moroccan that color coordinated with the floral and placed it way up under the bed, this visually carries the purples all the way to the seating spot.  It creates the feeling of an extra large rug.  Note how all of the major furniture has legs on the rug?  (see #3 above)

Large rugs can get expensive so layering coordinating smaller rugs like this can really be a budget saver while still getting a beautiful look.

What size do I need for my bedroom?

A good rule of thumb is at least 18-24″ past the bed frame.  If you have a larger room you can go past this, but make sure you have good furniture placement so it doesn’t feel like it swallowing up the space.  Typical size recommendations are a an 8’x10′ for a queen size bed, and a 9’x12′ for a king bed.

Here is our boys bedroom.  I broke the 18-24″ rule in here (psh of course I did right?!).  We have 2 twin beds and ideally an 8×11 or 9×12 would be the perfect size.  This is an 8×10 and although the 8 ft depth works with the size of the room and beds, the 10 ft width just extends a few inches past each bed.

See how there’s a nice overlap of the rug past the foot of them?  It grounds the area and draws the eye to the beds and accent wall.

You can see in between the beds how far back it goes but also how narrow it is on the sides.  Great depth but lacking in length.

Does it work like this?  Yep!  But it doesn’t feel as balanced as it would if it had an 11 or 12 foot length.

In this room I used a cowhide rug.  It isn’t a perfect rectangle, so I amplified the wonky shape by have the footboard just rest on the edges and letting the angles extend out.  Also my son, this is his room, wanted no muss no fuss so he would never let me put a large rug in here.  This was a good solution that made us both happy!

It adds texture and interest without being too dinky or overtaking this smaller room.

All this to say, there are basic guidelines with a few examples and a few examples that don’t follow them.  Which I hope doesn’t confuse you!   I just like to show you that there are a lot of ways to play with rugs.  If you aren’t sure though, stick to the guidelines and you can’t go wrong.

Do you have any tips on rugs in bedrooms?  What are your favorite styles to use?

I always love to hear from you so hit me up in the comments!

And be sure to pop your email in the subscribe box!  I’m sharing the laundry room reno design plan next week and we are getting started.

XOXOXO

Have you ever placed a bedroom area rug?  Let me know in a comment below!