In my intro post for this series, I mentioned our goal was to go vintage, pre-owned whenever possible. So imagine my emotional letdown when I realized we were going to have to buy new rugs. Why? Because a 1982 open floor plan house isn’t suited in size and scale for rugs to work with our furniture and size of room. How is that?
- We wanted square and BIG I knew our lovely hand-me-down rugs from Turkey were too small (they were too small for some rooms in our old house built in the 30s). But, I didn’t realize that the rug sizes we needed to fill the space correctly were considered ‘extra large’ or ‘mansion rugs’. LOL at ‘mansion’. This is America! What was once a mansion rug is probably a standard size for much of this country.
- Square rugs rarely come standard in 10’x 10’or 12’x 12′. Period. I thought it would be easy, but even my searches online didn’t turn up much. My designer said at that size, we’d need to look at custom.
We needed to choose the rug first because it’s easier to match colors to a rug than match a rug to your furniture. We eventually settled on using custom rug startup Boundless. And I got over ‘needing’ a wool rug after seeing it would cost several thousand for each and STILL need to be cut down to the right size.
Here’s our palette. I was SURE Jordan wouldn’t like it. But, he looked at it and said, “That looks great.” Honestly, that’s more progress than we made in nine months. Look, he doesn’t even think we need to paint since the walls *are* painted, that’s a story for another time.
Enter Boundless Rugs. Boundless has a set number of designs and 22 colors to chose from. I found them from much googling on custom size rugs. What’s great, is any of their nylon rugs are customizable by size and color. PERFECT. Each rug was going to come in at our budget. As of this writing, they are going to add more designs. But, I couldn’t let FOMO stop me from moving forward with our project.
From Boundless, we ordered a FREE sample rug to see the colors and textures in real life. I actually put this on the ground, stood on it, propped my ankles on it. The pile is 1/2″ thick and far denser than I would have thought. The material is nylon which is stain resistant and durable for high traffic areas. I do wish there were more color choices, but they are also a ten- months-old start up! I’ll give them some time.
Here are our final rug choices: the Miles on the left, Hendry on the right. This is where I found the designer help extremely useful. She was able to pick two rugs that are cousins, not twins. She chose colors that worked well together too (we went through several tonal iterations before settling on this). I couldn’t even wrap my mind around getting rugs that had a print and needed to be in the same room. She showed us these two and we were sold.
Boundless was fantastic to work with. They digitally edited the rug so we could see how they would look in the dimensions we needed. They also made some tweaks to the design to fit our space and our designer’s vision. For the Miles above, they showed several iterations until it worked for us. For the Hendry below, they added an additional repeat of the design, keeping the same scale (we had the option of enlarging the print for a more bold look too).
The rugs are milled in the US and will arrive in a few months. I’ll check back in when they get here! But, so far, I think Boundless is a great option if you have odd sizes. Or need specific colors. I would of course prefer wool vs nylon, but I don’t have $8,000 for rugs, lol.
Next… Upholstery. Now that the rugs are chosen, we can actually move on to FABRICS!
Miss Celie's Pants 
Renee,
I would advise caution with a navy rug. A family member had one and spent a LOT of time crawling around trying to get up bits the vacuum missed or that turned up right after vacuuming. I am thinking light colored thread. Etc. It is beautiful, though.
Then you’re going to love our sofa, lol. I’m prepared. Our other rug is burgundy and always shows bits of thread, etc. Because of the dog, I vacuum pretty frequently.
I guess my comment stemmed from the fact that I HATE to vacuum. I was reminded of this an hour ago when I realized I had to do it.
HAHAHAHA!!! That’s hilarious. I’ve discovered I despise mopping. Our entryway is mostly whiteish tiles and shows ALL THE DIRT. I think I sweep and mop three times a week. It enrages me.
I am thoroughly enjoying your journey. Thank you for sharing. It is nice to have a designer help you up your project while still keeping it your taste.
Nylon does wear well. Theoretically you can even drape it over a couple of kids trampolines and wash it thoroughly with a hose. I don’t know if you know that its downside (and I’m not suggesting it’s a big one) is static electricity. Readers Digest had a story about a tyke who fell off a step when his family was moving. Afterwards he seemed to regress. Rather than pull up to the coffee table and toddle around it as he had been doing, he now screamed and sat down crying in frustration. CAT scans were considered experimental, so insurance wouldn’t pay. The parents spent the price of half a college education having his head examined. Nothing. Then the neighbor pointed out that when he crawled across the nylon carpet he was building up static electricity and sparking his fingers when he touched the metal coffee table. Changing it to a wooden one until he was a few months older was the only cure needed. I thought of this when new carpeting at work caused a shock at the doorknob, but we all soon became accustomed to touching it first with knuckles.
Oh! This is good information as we haven’t picked out our final coffee table yet. Thanks for the tip! It totally wouldn’t have crossed my mind.
Static! When I moved from Miami, Florida to Colorado Spings in February, the static nearly did me in! Wow, I remember being in a store and touching the display rack, and it almost knocked me over. Here on the East Coast, it isn’t nearly the same problem. You’ll be fine with your lovely rugs, Renee. What happened to the “But, I do not clean” girl?”
I had fun playing around on the Boundless site so thanks for that! :-p
I can’t see the images though. Hmm. I normally view blogs through Firefox but I tried Chrome too.
I noticed this on my phone too, but not on my browser. It might be because I copy and pasted images that are .PNG rather than .JPEG. Thanks for the heads up. Was going to ask my friend Liz to look.
I think I’ve sorted it out! Thanks for the heads up. Photos should be posting now.
Great blog about new rugs. Reminds me of when we moved into our new home in 1969, mom and dad wanted area rugs, not wall to wall carpet, covering the new hardwood floors. They ended up buying roll carpeting and having the company finish the cut edges of the carpet to almost fit each room. With 5 kids, this was the most economical choice. Those hardwood floors are still in excellent shape today, some 50 years later.
The downside to wool rugs is the lint they produce. The upside is they hold up well to use. Enjoy your new home.
They do hold up well. I’m amazed my parent’s 30 year old rugs are still around. I swear they are also still delinting too. I started looking at getting carpet and having the edges bound. Luckily, I found this start up.
Sounds like you’re having fun working with a designer on this venture. Do you follow Maria Killam’s blog? She’s a lover of color and an entertaining read.
Very bold! I love them. We have nylon rugs and one wall-to-wall in our home. We only have static issues with the wall-to-wall carpet. My daughter thought she would lose her mind, until I pointed out that she just needs to touch the wood trim before she touches the light switch to avoid a shock. Since we have our area rugs over hardwood, we don’t notice any issues in the other rooms. I love that your husband doesn’t think you need to paint! 🤣
I think your plan sounds great. I second the idea of getting a piece of wall-to-wall cut. I ended up with this option when I needed an 11×12 rug for a particular living room. You have to pay for the starting size, eg. the width you need. I found a great (wool!) piece I loved, which just happened to be an end of roll. I had it bound, and all in it was something like $550 Canadian, which is unheard of for an area rug. particularly that size. I was also able to buy a matching piece of underlay which they cut and delivered together. It’s all held up really well.
Looking good! I also had a blast customizing some of the des and I didn’t like at fist. Can’t wait to see your other choices for the rest.