This Rug Mistake Makes Rooms Feel 'Overwhelming' or 'Absurd', Says a Seasoned Designer

A naturally lit living room with a softly shaped white lounge sofa, a red, blue, and cream rug, wooden chairs, two marble coffee tables, one round, one squared, and spherical scones. — Luke Irwin has spent two decades making rugs that speak as much of times long gone as they root us in the present. But even those need styling.

(Image credit: Luke Irwin)

There is an element of time travelling in the work of Irish rug designer Luke Irwin, and an eagerness to embrace textiles as a means of weaving distant geographies closer together. This isn't only palpable in the vibrant, heritage-inspired patterns and palettes of his rugs, designed by Irwin in London and knotted by hand by traditional artisans in the Indian workshops of Jaipur and New Delhi, and Nepal's own, located right in the foothills of the Himalayas. But it reflects in his stellar clientele, too, which ranges from U2 and The Rolling Stones to Barack Obama and British Royals, to name a few, uniting pop culture, politics, and the monarchy into one eclectic fandom.

For Irwin, a rug is an indispensable addition to every room, a quiet backdrop against which the entire scheme unfolds, and "a foundation on which all the disparate elements and personality within a room are bound together," the designer writes on his website. But only years of experience — he's had 23 and counting — make choosing a rug a no-brainer. He talks to us about that, the "dispiriting" realization that people still struggle with finding the right-sized rug and the right pattern for their home's atmosphere, and what to do to ensure you stay away from the most common mistakes. We promise: it's easier than you'd think.

A man in a pink long-sleeved shirt and blue trousers looks to his left while posing sitting in front of a tufted red, blue, yellow, black, and white rug with his hands meeting. — "I like living where other people have lived before, with the textures of what came before," designer and creative director Luke Irwin says of his love of rugs. It is an aspiration that transpires in her intricate designs, where present and past and distant geographies merge into one.

Luke Irwin

Established in 2003, Luke Irwin's namesake studio specializes in the design and manufacture of hand knotted custom made rugs. Made to order, each rug can be personalized for a truly bespoke shopping experience with support on size, color, weave, textile, and design choices from its in-house team.

What's One Thought You Can't Shake When It Comes to Rugs?

A naturally lit interior with a lounge sofa in a soft shape, wood-paneled walls, wood furniture along with marble accents, eccentric artwork, and a pendant paper lantern. — Luke Irwin's Ikat collection gathers cues from the iconic pattern, originating in Indonesia, reinterpreting it for the pan-global design phenomenon it is to this day. The designer's twist? "We chose to rescale and embolden the colors in some and mute them in others".

"Every evening I spend some time wandering the streets of London, staring into the windows of various estate agents. This is not some wistful (or whimsical) search for the ideal property, but more a taking of the temperature of how houses and flats are decorated."

What Elements Make or Break the 'Perfect' Rug for You?

A man dressed in a long-sleeved pink shirt with blue trousers and brown shoes sits on a beige armchair in a rug-clad room with a lacquered red cabinet and two sculptural collectibles behind him. — "In my long experience, it is always the combination I choose first that is the winner — the agonizing is all for nought," says Irwin.

"There are three key elements to rugs: the pattern or design, the colors, and the size. Pattern and design are the easiest elements; you can tell very quickly if you like it and whether it would work with your room.

"Color is rather more subjective, and you can spend days picking different poms and agonizing over whether one tone would be more successful than a very similar tone. In my long experience, it is always the combination I choose first that is the winner — the agonizing is all for nought."

What Is the Hardest Part of Choosing a Rug?

Acquamarine-tinted interior, featuring mirrored walls, a rug with wavy brown lines on beige background, a central wooden table, an armchair, flowers, and books. — No, you're not the only one who can't make up their mind.

"Picking the right size is probably the most critical element, as too big is overwhelming and too small is absurd. As a general rule of thumb, in a large open-plan space, all the furniture should sit entirely on the rug to create a room, and in other settings, at the very least, the front legs should be on the rug. To me, it looks very odd if furniture is half on and half off the rug."

What Are Your Tricks to Getting It Just Right?

"A great hack for being able to visualize the perfect size is to lay out an old copy of the Financial Times on the floor, as the color of the paper is perfect for visualizing scale. I have yet to buy a property, but the exercise is very instructive."

What Is a Room Without a Rug, Then?

A layered living room interior with pale lilac walls, stuccoed detailing, wood and upholstered furniture, striped black and white stools, and lots of books on a coffee table along with art and plants. — In the picture: one of Luke Irwin's abstract Holi rugs, part of the Holi collection, as seen in a residential project by Christian Bense.

"Rooms with no rug at all are the oddest ones to me. This had me thinking about that pearl of wisdom that Cicero wrote to his long-suffering nephew: 'A room without books is like a man without a soul.' Except that I would substitute books for rugs. Actually, both are true."

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Continue browsing for more expert advice, or hear how to choose a rug from our very own executive editor, Pip Rich.

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Gilda Bruno is Livingetc's Lifestyle Editor. Before joining the team, she worked as an Editorial Assistant on the print edition of AnOther Magazine and as a freelance Production Journalist, Sub-Editor, and Writer on the Life & Arts desk of Financial Times. Gilda's arts and culture writing has appeared in several books and publications including Apartamento’s Liguria: Recipes & Wanderings Along the Italian Riviera, Sam Wright’s debut monograph The City of the Sun, The British Journal of Photography, DAZED, Document Journal, Elephant, The Face, Family Style, Foam, Il Giornale dell’Arte, HUCK, i-D, PAPER, VICE, Vogue Italia, and WePresent, among many others.