Rugs by Size: Large, Small and Extra Large Rugs
Size is the thing people get wrong. Colour and pattern are a matter of taste, but a rug two sizes down makes a room look smaller than it is, and no amount of choosing the right shade fixes it. Rugs here are measured in centimetres, width first, and a round rug is measured across the middle.
| Size | Roughly | Where it works |
|---|---|---|
| Small | Up to around 120 x 170cm | Beside a bed, a small bedroom, a landing, in front of a hearth |
| Medium | Up to around 200 x 290cm | Most bedrooms, a small sitting room, under a coffee table |
| Large | Above medium, below extra large | The commonest choice for a living room, and the biggest group here |
| Extra large | From around 300 x 400cm upwards | Open-plan rooms, under a dining table with the chairs on it |
Small Rugs
Small is anything up to around 120 x 170cm, and the ones at the bottom of that band are closer to a mat than a rug. They earn their place where the floor itself is small or where the rug has one job: the side you get out of bed on, a landing, the strip in front of a hearth, a hallway too short for a runner.
What a small rug cannot do is anchor furniture. Put one in the middle of a living room floor and the sofa sits off it, which is the single commonest sizing mistake. Browse small rugs.
Large Rugs
Large is where most living rooms end up, and it is the biggest group on the site. The test is the furniture rather than the room: the rug should reach far enough that the front legs of the sofa and the chairs stand on it. That pulls the seating into one group instead of leaving a rug marooned between them.
In a bedroom, large means the rug emerges past the foot of the bed and both sides, so you step onto it rather than onto the floor beside it. Browse large rugs.
Extra Large Rugs
From around 300 x 400cm, and the reason to go there is usually a room without walls to break it up, or a dining table. Under a table the rug has to extend well past the edge on every side, far enough that the chairs stay on it when they are pushed back, which is why dining is the room where people go up two sizes rather than one.
Check the room before the rug. An extra large rug has to come through the door and get turned in the room, and it is heavy enough that laying it flat is a two-person job. Browse extra large rugs.
Standard Rug Sizes in cm
Rugs are made to a short list of sizes rather than to order, and the same measurements come round again across makers. In the UK the ones you will meet most often are 80 x 150cm and 120 x 170cm at the small end, 140 x 200cm and 160 x 230cm through the middle, 200 x 290cm and 200 x 300cm at the top of large, and 300 x 400cm upwards for extra large.
Two things worth knowing. Round rugs are quoted as a single measurement, the diameter, so a 160cm round rug covers less floor than a 160 x 230cm rectangle. And a size quoted by one maker as 200 x 290cm and by another as 200 x 300cm is the same rug in practice — the difference is the loom, not the design.
Rug Sizes FAQs
What size rug do I need for a living room?
Large, in most rooms. Measure your seating rather than your floor: the rug wants to be wide enough for the front legs of the sofa and the chairs to stand on it. If it falls between two sizes, take the larger one.
What is a standard rug size?
There is no single standard, but 120 x 170cm and 160 x 230cm are the two you will see more than any others, and most ranges are built around them. Sizes are quoted width first, in centimetres.
How do I measure for a rug?
Mark the outline on the floor with masking tape or newspaper and live with it for a day. It costs nothing and it catches the two problems a tape measure misses: a door that opens over the rug, and a rug that stops just short of the furniture.
Should a rug go under the furniture or in front of it?
Under, at least as far as the front legs. A rug that sits entirely in front of a sofa reads as an off-cut, and it is the reason a small rug in a large room never looks right no matter what is on it.