About this site

Why this exists

There is an enormous amount of rug inspiration on the internet and very little rug information. Search for almost any rug question and you will find a gallery of beautiful rooms and almost no numbers.

That gap causes a specific, expensive mistake: people buy rugs one size too small. It happens constantly, it is hard to undo because returning a large rug is a genuine errand, and it is completely avoidable with a tape measure and two or three rules.

So this site leads with the measurement. Every guide gives you the governing number first, draws it to scale, and only then discusses how it will look.

Who writes it

Loomé & Rug is written and run by Priyam Chakraborty, who comes to this from a professional photography and design background rather than from retail. That background is why the diagrams are true scale drawings rather than illustrations — you can measure them and the proportions will hold.

It also explains the bias of the site. Composition, proportion and how an object sits in a frame are the things I spent years thinking about, and a rug that is the wrong size breaks a room's composition in exactly the way a badly cropped photograph breaks an image.

How the guides are put together

Every guide is built around one governing constraint — the clearance that has to exist, or the thing that has to stay on the rug. Standard US mattress dimensions, standard table dimensions, standard hallway widths and the sizes actually stocked by American retailers are what the arithmetic runs on.

All measurements are imperial, because these guides are written for homes in the United States, where rugs are sold in feet and inches and rooms are described in the same units.

What this site does not do

It does not review individual rugs or rank brands. Sizing advice is durable; a rating of a particular rug is out of date within a season, and there are already plenty of sites doing that badly.

It does not tell you what style to like. The guides stop at the point where the decision becomes taste, because at that point you know your room better than any website does.

How it is funded

Some links on this site are affiliate links, meaning a commission may be earned if you buy through one. This never changes which size a guide recommends — the arithmetic does not have an opinion about where you shop. Full disclosure →

Elsewhere

Rug sizing diagrams and room ideas are also posted on Pinterest at pinterest.com/loomeandrug.

Corrections and questions are welcome — if a number here is wrong, I would rather know. Get in touch →