No, your rug colour does not need to match the walls. Instead, focus on the three biggest pieces in your living room (such as your sofa or a large piece of wall art), and go for a rug that references colours that sit in the same wheelhouse.
If your primary furniture is upholstered in a pattern or is elaborate in design, a solid-colored rug would work really well. Make sure a solid-colored rug complements your sofa color, and match it to the accent colors in the room, such as artwork or a vase.
Your rug needs to suit the space it's in and even more importantly, it needs to match your furniture. A badly matched rug can ruin the whole look of your space, but it's not difficult to find out how to pull this off.
Find a Color in Common
This is the easiest way to pair a rug with your couch. Simply identify a common color on your rug that's also on your couch, and voilà—you've done it!
Leave at least 6-8” between the rug and the floor on all sides. This will ensure the rug looks intentional in the space. At least two legs of all main furniture pieces should rest on the rug. The rug should extend 12-18” beyond the sides of the furniture underneath.
General Rules:
Make sure your rug is at least 6″ wider (8″ is ideal) than your sofa on both sides. Typically run the rug the length of the sofa. Give 30″ to 36″ of a walkway between large furniture pieces (if your living room allows for it) if not then at least 18″-24″. That will help to inform your rug size.
Beige is a warm-toned color that looks great with greys. This color works best if you look for a nicely balanced setup. A warm sofa and a dark beige rug make a perfect match. Another benefit of beige is that it looks good in any pattern and gives different impressions, from classic to modern.
The most popular, perhaps unsurprisingly, is gray. Ben White, design and trade specialist at Swyft Home, explained why gray topped the list: “Gray is a likely a slightly more popular sofa color choice as it's the most versatile of all the neutral colors.
Considering Wall Color
Your wall color should be two tones lighter than your carpet. If you have dark walls, you can also go a few tones lighter with your carpet. Since it's much easier to change your wall color than your carpet, choose your carpet color first and then match your wall color.
Choose Light Colors and Almost No Pattern. Light-colored rugs make a room look brighter and feel spacious.
Decorating your home with large area rugs does several things for your interior design — the rug in each space will set a particular mood or tone for the whole room and help provide shape to an otherwise undefined space. But if you have multiple rugs in your home, do they all need to match? The immediate answer is: No!
The color of your area rug will set the tone for the entire room, so it's an important decision. If you already have furniture, consider how different colors will work with your existing items. Rooms with a lot of color and pattern often work best with a rug that has neutral tones or a single color.
In a living room, for instance, all of the furniture should be on top of the rug. If this isn't possible, it's okay to have the front legs of major upholstered pieces on the rug and the back legs off. However, all the legs of smaller pieces should be on the rug.
Pick a rug colour that complements your existing furniture and design. Your area rug should match everything! Using existing features such as furniture in your room is a great way to pin down colour choices. Choosing a shade that matches with other elements of the room can make your interior decoration look cohesive.
The most popular carpet colors are black and dark variants and for good reason. Black and dark gray carpets are found ubiquitously wherever carpeting is the flooring of choice. They also stand up to stains well, accentuate more vibrant decor choices, and will never go out of style.
Choose a light-colored rug to open up your space.
“Stick to light, cool tones as much as possible, as these will trick the eye into thinking the space is bigger than it is,” recommends Cristina.
Just be sure to choose a color that's different enough from your floor color to provide a bit of contrast. Step 3: Think about how lighting will affect the colors in the room. Also, don't just consider how dark your flooring is; consider how dark your room is in general.
If you want timeless furniture, go for a timeless color. Yes, a color! A blue, yellow, or black sofa will be a lot more timeless than the popular gray. The gray sofas of today are just the brown leather sofas of 10 years ago.
The sofa color that will work in pretty much any style sofa with almost any color palette is beige. With cooler beiges and warmer beiges available there's a beige for every space.
Natural colors like green pair well with browns. Any shade of green will work. Rugs in shades of green, tan, and brown are a wonderful idea for a natural design style. These earthy tones will look nice next to natural fabrics, a medium shade of brown, or if your living space has natural decor, such as plants.
Depending on the undertone, a gray sofa can fit well with white, beige, black, sepia, and wood tones. Vary the brightness of neutrals around the room to add depth and dimension to the palette.