Are you taking advantage of runner rugs in the most used areas of your home? These spaces can be enhanced with some decor “love.” Your hallways, kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms are great spaces to be enhanced with a beautiful and stylish runner. Here are 6 Tips to help you choose and use a runner.
You probably knew this one! People have been adorning their hallways with hallway runners for generations. They add beauty, elegance, and comfort. This is especially helpful for halls with hardwood floors, which might seem bare without one. It’s also easy to change the look of your home by adding a new hallway runner. Whether you opt for the classic look of a traditional Persian Runner Rug or a modern runner, they can really help to connect the decor of your home together.
Your hallways obviously get a lot more concentrated foot traffic than any other part of your home. So by adding a runner, you’ll protect your hardwood floors or your carpeting, which is more difficult to deep clean, relative to area rug cleaning.
Kitchen Runner: You can add so much warmth to a kitchen by adding a runner. So yes, you’re kitchen floor does get dirty, so you’ll want to opt for a darker color runner which will hide the dirt and something you can clean more easily. Rug Expo offers both luxury hand-knotted wool runners as well as synthetic fiber runners.
Bathroom Runner: Adding a runner to your bathroom is a fantastic idea. It’s wonderful for bare feet when it’s otherwise cold tile!
Bedroom Runners: While many people opt for a full-size rug, such as a rectangular 9×12, may opt for a bedside runner. People often place a runner at the foot of their bed, depending on foot traffic and your room setup. Below is a typical setup with a runner on one or both sides of a bed.
Footfalls on hardwood floors can be a bit loud and depending on your ceilings, can even create an echo. Why not add some warmth and foot comfort, whether you’re wearing shoes or not? You should also consider adding a good runner rug pad as this will also help protect the runner itself.
In general, match the length of your runner to the space it will lay, but provide a reasonable margin.
Before we talk about size, you’ll need to calculate how much margin you need. The margin on each side of a hallway should be about 6″, but 3 to 9″ is fine. If you have a long hallway and want to place two runners, you can do so, but leave about a 6 to 12″ gap between the two. Check the diagram below for these runner margin recommendations:
If you’re using a runner in a kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom the margin and gap guidelines are a bit more flexible. Just use a size that fits well and will minimize snagging or tripping over the ends of your runner.
So in a hallway, you’ll want to give the runner a margin all around, and for the runner to start from the “main” entry point and ideally, extend to the end of the hallway. So if your runner doesn’t extend the entire length of the hallway, you’ll just want to make sure it starts from the “main” entry, for example from an outside door. That way, you land on the runner itself. Or if the runner is too short, you can place it “all in” the landing area which is preferred, or it’s also acceptable to place it in the middle of the hall, to ensure that the runner is not “half in, half out” of the landing area. Here’s a diagram that provides some of the best placements for a runner in a hallway.
You can find runners in practically any size. Here is a breakdown of sizes:
Machine-made stair runners, roll runners, or continuous runners can be custom cut and bound by your local rug store, such as Rug Expo in San Diego. We cut a custom size from 100′ long rolls. This can be a good option when you need a runner of 20 feet or more. Call us for a quote.
Ready to enhance the beauty and comfort of your home?
Search for a regular runner rug here, or search for Persian runner rugs here.
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