- The short answer: in a living room, the right size is 200 × 150 cm. Allow 180 × 120 cm in a small living room and 240 × 170 cm in a large one. The rug stops five centimetres in front of the sofa, without going underneath: you see the floor all around and, above all, you see the whole rug. In a bedroom, allow 280 × 180 cm laid across the width of the bed, or two 120 × 80 cm bedside rugs and a 150 × 100 cm rug at the foot. Under a dining table, allow 300 × 200 cm, and check with your chairs rather than a tape measure.
That is the essentials. The rest of this article explains why, with sketches for each layout, because size is what our customers hesitate over most, and where a mistake costs the most.
Our family has been selling handmade rugs for three generations, and we see the same scene every week: someone comes back with a rug bought too small, disappointed, not understanding why it doesn't look right at home. It is almost never a question of pattern or colour. It is a question of dimensions.
A handmade rug is meant to be seen in full
Before giving any figures, one point needs clarifying, because it governs everything else and because we are going to advise the opposite of what you will read almost everywhere else.
Interiors guides keep repeating that you need a very large rug, with all the furniture standing on it. That rule comes from contemporary rugs, plain or with a repeating pattern: it doesn't matter which part you hide, since the pattern is the same everywhere.
A handmade rug does not work like that. It has a composition. A central medallion, corner spandrels, a main border, guard borders. It is a design conceived as a whole, by one person, over months of work. Slide two thirds of that design under a sofa and you no longer have a composed piece: you have a fragment.
Hence our approach, the one we have defended in the shop for three generations:
- The rug stays fully visible. It stops just in front of the sofa and armchairs, about five centimetres away. You see the medallion, the four spandrels and the complete borders.
- The floor frames the rug on all four sides. That frame of parquet or tiles is not wasted space; it is what makes the rug read as an object in its own right. Exactly like the white margin around a print.
- The long side of the rug is close to the width of the sofa. This is the only real guide to proportion, and it is what avoids the "lost rug" effect.
- The rug is centred on the coffee table, not on the room. The eye looks for the centre of the living space, not the geometric centre of the room.
And one consequence that matters: this approach often halves the budget. A handmade rug is priced by its surface area. Going from 200 × 150 to 250 × 350 more than doubles the surface, and therefore the price. For the same budget, you can choose a piece of far higher quality: a finer weave, a lovelier wool, a rarer origin. It is a trade-off we suggest every day, and our customers do not regret it.
The masking tape trick
Before buying, mark the dimensions of the rug you have in mind on the floor with masking tape. Live with that rectangle for two or three days. You will know straight away whether you want it bigger. It takes ten minutes and avoids most bad choices.
The living room: our recommended placement and its variations
The reference placement: in front of the sofa
The rug is laid in front of the sofa and stops about five centimetres from it. The same goes for the armchairs. The coffee table stands entirely on the rug.
Those five centimetres are not a detail. They create a clean line of floor between the furniture and the rug, which sets one apart from the other. Without that gap, the rug seems to slide under the sofa and you lose the border, which is often the most beautiful part of an Oriental rug.
The result: the sofa stays a sofa, the rug stays a rug, and the floor shows off both. In a room, it is the spaces in between that create calm.
Three sizes, depending on the size of the living room
A sofa usually measures between 180 and 240 cm. The rug follows that width.
- Small living room, 180 cm sofa → 180 × 120 cm rug
- The most common case, 200 cm sofa → 200 × 150 cm rug
- Large living room, 220 to 240 cm sofa → 240 × 170 cm rug
If you only remember one size, make it 200 × 150 cm. It suits the vast majority of French living rooms, and it is by far the size we recommend most often.
For depth, the guide is simple: the rug should take the coffee table with a little room to spare, and stop before the walkway. A rug you have to step over to cross the room is a badly placed rug.
The mistake to avoid
Contrary to popular belief, the mistake is not having a rug that doesn't go under the furniture. It is having a rug that is too narrow for the sofa.
A rug 120 cm wide in front of a 240 cm sofa will always look lost, however good it is. The proportions are broken. A 120 × 170 cm rug has every reason to be in an entrance hall, a hallway or a child's bedroom, but rarely in the middle of a living room.
The other mistake, less common, is a rug laid the wrong way round in relation to the sofa. The long side of the rug should be parallel to the sofa, not perpendicular to it.
The exception: the rug under all the furniture
This layout exists and it can be very beautiful. But it is the exception, not the rule.
The dimensions: 200 × 300 cm in a tighter version, 250 × 350 cm for a truly large format, 300 × 400 cm in very large spaces.
When it makes sense: a genuinely large living room, from 30 m² upwards, where a 200 × 150 would float. A deliberate design choice, especially in very contemporary interiors looking for a continuous textile floor. Or a rug with a regular pattern, such as a Berber rug, a textured plain rug or a striped kilim, which loses nothing by being partly covered.
What it costs: a 250 × 350 is almost three times the surface of a 200 × 150. For a hand-knotted rug, that is a completely different budget. It is a decision to make knowingly, not an obligation.
The corner sofa
The principle stays the same: the rug fits into the corner, with the same five-centimetre gap in front of both parts of the seating.
The bedroom: the rug you discover barefoot
In a bedroom, a rug is a feeling before it is an image. It is what you touch when you get out of bed, barefoot, in the morning. Two layouts dominate.
The rug laid across the width of the bed
A single 280 × 180 cm rug, laid crosswise: its long side runs across the width of the bed.
It is the orientation that matters here, and it often surprises people. The instinct would be to lay the rug lengthwise along the bed; it works crosswise. The 280 cm covers the width of the bed and extends about sixty centimetres on the left and right, while the 180 cm depth lets the rug extend beyond the foot of the bed. The result: whichever side you get out of bed, your foot lands on wool.
The rug starts after the bedside tables, which stand on the bare floor. This is deliberate: it avoids crushing the wool under a piece of furniture and leaves the headboard room to breathe.
This size works for a 140 cm bed as well as a 160 cm bed. A 190 × 140 and a 200 × 160 bed both suit a 280 × 180 rug, which makes it a remarkably versatile size. You will also find many antique rugs in this format, one of the most common in traditional production.
Two bedside rugs and a rug at the foot of the bed
This is the most widespread layout, and the one found in old houses. Three small pieces rather than one large one: a bedside rug on each side of the bed and a rug at the foot.
The dimensions: two 120 × 80 cm bedside rugs laid along the bed, and a 150 × 100 cm rug at the foot. In a narrow bedroom, the bedside rugs drop to 90 × 60 cm.
This layout has four very practical advantages. It lets the floor show, which is precious with a beautiful parquet. It costs much less than a large rug. It lets you play with three different pieces rather than one. And above all, it opens the door to antique rugs: small formats are plentiful, varied and often magnificent, whereas large handmade pieces are rare and expensive.
A styling tip: don't look for three identical rugs. Three pieces from the same family (same origin, similar colour range, different patterns) look far more alive than three twins. That is how bedrooms were furnished before everything was standardised.
And the very large rug under the bed?
You will often read that you need a 240 × 340 cm rug running under the whole bed, with 60 cm showing on every side. It is possible, but it requires a large bedroom and, above all, it buries three quarters of the rug under a bed. On a handmade piece with a composed design, that is a lot of wool and work that nobody will ever see. It is not our first recommendation.
The dining room: the chair leg test
This is the only room where the constraint is purely practical. And the right way to check is not to measure a theoretical overhang, but to look at your chair legs.
The reference size: 300 × 200 cm
This is the size we recommend most often, and it suits most family tables. But it depends on your furniture: the size of the table, the number of chairs and how much room they take. Two tables of the same length with different chairs do not call for the same rug.
Hence the two benchmarks below, which are worth more than any formula.
The minimum and the ideal
The acceptable minimum. With the chairs pushed under the table, they must be entirely on the rug : no leg off the edge. And when someone is sitting down, with the chair pulled back, it is acceptable for the two back legs to come off the rug. That is what a 300 × 200 cm gives you with a standard table, and it works very well day to day.
The ideal. All four legs stay on the rug even when you are seated. It is more stable, quieter, and it protects the border of the rug, which always suffers when the back legs go over it. You then need to go up to 300 × 250 cm, or even 350 × 250 cm depending on the size of the room.
What you should never have: a chair pushed in whose back legs are already off the rug. Then the rug is too small, and every meal will damage it a little more.
How to check at home in two minutes
Sit at the table, push your chair back as you normally would, and measure the distance between the edge of the table and the back legs of the chair. Multiply by two and add the size of the table: that is the size that keeps all four legs on the rug. Take off about twenty centimetres and you have the acceptable minimum.
Two points on material and shape
The shape follows the table. Round table, round rug. Rectangular table, rectangular rug. A round rug under a rectangular table creates a clash the eye notices instantly. For a round table, allow a round rug at least 50 cm wider all round.
The material matters as much as the size. Under a table, choose a flat weave such as a kilim, or a short-pile rug. Chairs slide instead of catching, cleaning is easy, and the thickness does not unsettle the legs. Long-pile wool rugs are best avoided here.
Entrance hall and hallway: the long formats
In a hallway, leave 10 to 15 cm of visible floor on each side. A rug that touches the skirting boards loses its shape and wears faster. The useful sizes are 80 × 200, 80 × 250 and 80 × 300 cm.
In an entrance hall, the constraint is the door: it must open freely over the rug. An 80 × 150 cm is almost always enough. Choose a short-pile rug, as this is the busiest area of the home, and a non-slip underlay is not optional.
One last factor: which way round you lay it
There is one point most buyers discover afterwards: a hand-knotted rug has a light side and a dark side. The pile lies in one direction, and depending on where you look at it from, the same colours appear lustrous or deep.
It changes nothing about the dimensions, but a great deal about how it looks. Once you have chosen the size, you still need to decide which way round to lay the rug, especially in relation to your window.
Size summary table
| Situation | Recommended size |
|---|---|
| Living room, small (180 cm sofa) | 180 × 120 cm |
| Living room, most common (200 cm sofa) | 200 × 150 cm |
| Living room, large (220-240 cm sofa) | 240 × 170 cm |
| Corner sofa | 240 × 170 cm |
| Living room, exception under all the furniture | 200 × 300, 250 × 350 or 300 × 400 cm |
| Bedroom, 140 or 160 cm bed, single rug | 280 × 180 cm, laid across the width of the bed |
| Bedroom, bedside rugs | 2 × (120 × 80 cm), or 90 × 60 cm if the room is narrow |
| Bedroom, rug at the foot of the bed | 150 × 100 cm |
| Dining table, reference size | 300 × 200 cm |
| Dining table, four legs on the rug when seated | 300 × 250 or 350 × 250 cm |
| 120 cm round table | 240 cm round rug |
| Hallway | 80 × 200 to 80 × 300 cm |
| Entrance hall | 80 × 150 cm |
To find your way around our catalogue, our rugs are grouped by length: small rugs (under 160 cm), medium rugs (160 to 229 cm), large rugs (230 to 349 cm) and extra-large rugs (over 350 cm). You can also filter by shape if you are looking for a round rug or a runner.
Frequently asked questions
What size rug for a 20 m² living room?
A 200 × 150 cm in the vast majority of cases, or a 240 × 170 cm if your sofa is longer than 220 cm. Lay it in front of the sofa, five centimetres away from it.
Should the rug go under the sofa?
We recommend the opposite: that it stops just in front, about five centimetres away. A handmade rug has a composition (medallion, spandrels, borders) that you lose by hiding it under furniture. A rug under all the furniture is still possible, but it is a style choice, and a much higher budget.
Why are your size recommendations smaller than those in interiors magazines?
Because magazine rules come from contemporary rugs, plain or with a repeating pattern, which lose nothing when covered. A hand-knotted rug is a composed design: it is meant to be seen in full. It is also, incidentally, far more affordable (surface area sets the price).
Which rug should go under a dining table?
A 300 × 200 cm in most cases. The right test: with the chairs pushed in, no leg should be off the rug; when seated, it is acceptable for the two back legs to come off. If you want all four legs on the rug even when seated, go up to 300 × 250 or 350 × 250 cm. Choose the same shape as the table, and ideally a flat weave or a short pile.
What size rug for a bedroom?
There are two possible answers. Either a single 280 × 180 cm rug, laid across the width of the bed: it extends about sixty centimetres on each side and at the foot. Or, more commonly, two 120 × 80 cm bedside rugs along the bed and a 150 × 100 cm rug at the foot. The 280 × 180 works as well for a 140 cm bed as for a 160 cm bed.
Which way should a rug go in a bedroom?
Across the width of the bed, in other words crosswise: the long side of the rug runs across the bed from one side to the other. That is what lets you step out of bed onto wool on both sides. Laying it lengthwise along the bed, as instinct suggests, is less comfortable and less balanced.
How can I tell whether a rug will suit my home before buying it?
Mark its dimensions on the floor with tape and live with it for a few days. And if you are in the Paris region (Île-de-France), take advantage of our free home trial : the rug comes to your home, in your own light, before you decide anything.
A final word
If you are still torn between two sizes, write to us or come to the shop with the dimensions of your room: we unroll, we measure, we turn the rug both ways in daylight, and you leave with a clear answer.
You will find us at 4 rue de Wattignies, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.
