Getting the size right, which is where most people go wrong

A rug that is too small makes a room look smaller, makes the furniture look stranded, and makes the rug itself look like a bath mat that has wandered in. It is also the default outcome of buying from a shop's stock sizes rather than from your floor.

Living rooms

The front legs of every seat should sit on the rug. That single rule does most of the work: it ties the seating into one group and gives the eye an edge that matches the arrangement rather than cutting across it. In a large room, all legs on is better still.

• Front legs on, minimum. A rug floating between the furniture is the error.
• Leave 30–45cm of bare floor between the rug edge and the wall. Wall to wall is a different product.
• In a long room, two rugs defining two zones beats one enormous compromise.

Dining rooms

Measure the table, then add at least 60cm on every side — 75cm if the chairs are heavy. The test is whether a chair stays on the rug when someone pushes back to stand up. If the back legs drop off the edge, everyone catches on it every meal, and the edge wears out in a year.

Tape the size out on your floor and live with it for two days. It costs nothing and it settles the argument.

Bedrooms and halls

In a bedroom, what matters is where your feet land. Either run a large rug under the lower two thirds of the bed so it emerges on three sides, or use runners down each side. A rug at the foot of the bed only looks deliberate if it is genuinely wide.

For a hall runner, leave 10–15cm of floor on each side and stop it well short of both ends — a runner that reaches for the walls looks like it was cut to fit. And if you are within reach of London, we will bring three sizes to your house and lay them, which settles it faster than any amount of measuring.