Advanced options
The universal error is buying too small: the "postage stamp" floating in front of the sofa. Living rooms want the rug UNDER the furniture (at least the front legs), extending 15-20cm past the sofa each side. Dining rugs need chairs to stay on the rug when pulled out: table + 60-75cm all round. Masking-tape the size on the floor before ordering.
What The Rug Size Calculator Works Out
- Minimum size needed: the furniture width plus a clearance each side: 20cm past each sofa arm in a living room, 65cm each side of a dining table so chairs stay on the rug when pushed back, 50cm showing each side of a bed. A 220cm sofa therefore wants a rug at least 260cm wide.
- Standard size to buy: the first stock size (160 x 230, 200 x 290, 240 x 330, 270 x 360, 300 x 400) whose long side covers the minimum. The trade's one systematic error is the "postage stamp" floating in front of the sofa; every rule here is generosity.
- Placement: front sofa legs on, rug under the coffee table; all table and chair legs on for dining; under the lower two-thirds of a bed. A rug's job is zoning, which a rug smaller than its furniture group cannot do.
- Custom clearance (advanced): override the default overhang, for example 30cm past the sofa arms for an all-legs-on look or 75cm round a dining table with carver chairs.
- Furniture length and minimum second dimension (advanced): enter the sofa depth, table length or bed length and the calculator sizes the rug's other side too (front third of the sofa plus a coffee table and walkway; table length plus chair clearance; lower two-thirds of the bed plus the foot), then picks a standard size that satisfies both, turned whichever way works.
- Room fit (advanced): with the room dimensions it reports the border of floor left at the walls. 20cm is the minimum, 20-40cm the sweet spot, and over 60cm means there is space to go up a size; it also gives the largest rug the room takes.
- Underlay (advanced): anti-slip underlay cut 5cm inside the rug edge all round, with its area and a rough cost at about GBP 8/m2. On hard floors it is non-negotiable physics: it grips the rug, protects the finish and adds the underfoot heft cheap rugs lack.
- Estimated cost (advanced): the chosen rug's area x your price per square metre plus underlay. Polypropylene runs roughly GBP 15 to GBP 40/m2 and shrugs off children and pets; wool GBP 60 to GBP 150/m2 wears and cleans best.
- Standard size table (advanced): every stock size with its area, whether it covers each minimum, the border it would leave in your room and its cost. Masking-tape the size on the floor and live with it for a day before ordering; January and summer sales price the size the room needed at what the postage stamp cost in October.