Pairing Rugs with Your Bed: A Bedroom Rug-Sizing and Placement Guide

Suggestions for the ideal pairing of area rugs with beds are born of need, practical experience, and a desire for the best possible visual impact and are meant as suggestions that can be altered to meet the needs of a specific bedroom. We know that, on the whole, these tips work time after time in bedroom after bedroom. This guide is offered as a starting point to make your job easier and more enjoyable as you finish your bedroom project. For ease of use, we’ve divided our guide into two parts:

Rug Placement

Optimal placement of bedroom area rugs offers many possibilities to suit your sense of style, depending upon the size of the space and chosen furniture layout. Here are a few to consider:

• Place a large rug under the bed with lots of room on the sides for comfort when hopping out of bed on cold mornings.
• Another option is to place the rug under the lower two-thirds of the bed so that it extends several inches at the foot of the bed or (several feet if you need to include a bench or other seating at the foot of the bed.)
• Many design professionals advocate not extending a rug under the bed to nightstands, but rather to position the rug, stopping a couple of inches short of the bedside tables. However, a lot of folks like the look of a bedroom rug that lays under nightstands or bedside tables, so this one is your call, go with your preferred look.
• Rug runners (usually selected for the hallway, bath, or galley kitchen) make for ideal bedroom rugs when placed on either side and at the foot of the bed. These rugs can be versatile when it comes to the amount of floor left uncovered by the rug.
• For a bed that’s centered in the bedroom, a small area rug on either side of the bed works well, as does a single small rug on one side of a bed that’s not centered (perhaps butting close to one wall.)
• A runner can be perfect in a bedroom with twin beds. Warm underfoot, a runner can add a touch of color or pattern between the beds. This configuration could work especially well for a guest room or child’s bedroom.

Rug Sizing:

When using an area rug to define a bedroom, a typical rug size would be:

• Queen bed - 8 x 10 ft.
  
• King bed - 9 x 12 ft.

• A good rule of thumb is to allow a foot to three feet of space between a room-size rug and the walls of your bedroom. This will keep your space from looking cluttered and over-crowded.

• Runners can average 2-3 ft. wide and 6-14 ft. long, used in the bedroom runners should be determined by the space available along the sides and foot of the bed. (You’ll easily see what length looks best in your room.

• A small 5 x 8 ft. or 6 x 9 ft. rug works well to define a bedroom sitting area or any additional space on the periphery of the bedroom that would benefit from a focal point of its own.

We hope you’ve found this basic guide useful in selecting the size and shape of your new bedroom rugs and in choosing their placement in relation to the bed, whether it’s a king, queen, full, or a twin size set. As you go forward, you’ll find pairing your rugs and bed to be a lot more enjoyable with a good solid starting place, one that is flexible enough to be adapted to your space.