How to Choose a Rug for a Kid’s Room – Top 5 Rugs List

Today’s post is inspired by a new project I’m working on – a teenage boy’s room.  I love to do kid’s rooms because children embrace color and pattern with open arms and excitement.  Color and pattern stimulate learning in children, so I always take the opportunity to be a little more dramatic and daring in the color scheme than I would in an adult-focused room.

I generally start kids rooms by finding a rug.  Unlike adults, kids spend a lot of time sitting on the floor or running around barefoot, so a sturdy comfortable rug is a must.  From there, I’ll pull out paint colors and fabric sample, investigate wood tones and find a motif.

my local rug showroom, where you can definitely break the bank

Sometimes you want a really amazing heirloom quality rug for your home, but in kid’s rooms that normally isn’t the case.  Choose a rug that won’t break the bank!  For a rug in a family room or a child’s bedroom, I look for 3 qualities:

1.   Is it durable?  Can you run plastic dump truck wheels across it without the threads pulling?  Are there enough knots per square inch for the child (and all of his friends!) to run across it thousands of times before it begins to show wear and tear?  Are the fibers sturdy and hearty enough to stand up to a full bookbag dragging across it?  This means that looped carpets are out as they snag easily.

2.  Is it mess-friendly?  Can Joey come in from soccer practice and plop down his cleats without the dirt ruining the rug?  Does it have a pattern that can hide stains?  If not, can they be easily washed out?

3.  It it touchable?  Is it soft enough that you want to sit on it? Could you lay down on the rug to watch TV without feeling scratchy afterwards?  Will it be inviting to put your bare feet on it in the morning as you dash to the bathroom?  Although some designers recommend going with polypropylene indoor/outdoor rugs for a child’s room, I really think that the fibers are uncomfortable and, well…crunchy.  There’s no better word to describe it, and no one wants a crunchy rug.  I like the feel of a soft wool rug under foot, and wool is durable enough to take a bit of a beating.

I’m also not a fan of themed rooms.  You’ll never see me design an underwater aquarium bedroom for a child or decorate walls with a princess theme.  Themes don’t stand the test of time and are only relevant for the amount of time that the child is interested in that topic.  With that in mind I steer clear of rugs with motifs like ponies or race cars.

My go to source for inexpensive but decent quality wool rugs is Overstock. Overstock is a weird mix — I’ll be honest, sometimes the rugs they have are crap and you can find them cheaper elsewhere.  But occasionally they have real gems, I’m talking designer rugs that are $4000-$5000 retail for less than a grand.  The key is to know the current offerings of most rug companies.  I’ve got this down by now, and I can quickly weed through Overstock to find the real bargain.

Below are my top 5 Overstock rugs for boy’s rooms.  Tomorrow I’ll pull out my favorite of these five and show you the room I’m designing around it.

I love the colors in this first rug — the soft pale gray with yellows, oranges, and greens is an unexpected departure from the standard blue used in a boy’s room.  The pattern is fun without feeling like there is a specific theme or gimmick.

Well, Thom, what are you doing here?  This green, brown, and cream rug is by famed interior designer Thom Filicia, so imagine my surprise in seeing it at Overstock!  I saw this rug used in a showhouse last year, and the movement from the pattern is really fun and makes a room feel exciting and dramatic.  The green is a citrusy lime green that is very current and modern.

I love the mixture of aqua, yellow, and navy blue.  There is something fresh and clean about this rug and I can see it working in many different design schemes.  I’d probably use it in a pale gray room with lots of pops of yellow.

I love this rug!  I’m really drawn to the barely-blue grays and navy in the pattern, and I think this rug would be really fun for a little boy’s room.  Can’t you just see a boy using the stripes as a race track?

Although this rug is less colorful than the others in this list, I’ve chosen it because it has a really fun vibe.  It’s another great design from Thom Filicia. I used this rug in a living room I designed last year, and the homeowners still get comments on it when they have guests over.  I would use it in a boy’s room because the pattern is really vibrant and striking in person, and you could easily change accent colors in the room as the child grows.