Here is the rug on our website, Most web images will be of a 5×8 or 6×9

Rugs come in many shapes and sizes but a lot of customers expect that no mater the size, that their area  rug will look exactly like the image on our site. Sadly this is not feasible as the rugs will not be able to have the same amount if detail in a smaller rug as they will in  larger rug. This is due to the amount of points(yarns) per square foot. When a rug is smaller the quality is the same so it will have the same points per foot but it will have less of them because a 2 x3 only has 6 square feet while a 5×8 will have 40 square feet. That’s a lot more square feet allowing for a much more detailed design. Of course the simpler the design, the more the smaller rug will look like the larger one. Also the more points a rug has will allow more detail in the smaller rug.

Hooked rugs are an excellent example of how the sizes look different. hooked rugs use large hooks of yarn that give the rug a charming quality, this also means that there are very few point per foot. The rug I chose to use as an example is from the Safavieh Chelsea collection. We have the rug in a 1’8″ x 2’6” which is a very small rug. This rug was returned to us because the customer that purchased it was unhappy because the small one lacked the detail that the image on our website shows. This return was also the inspiration for this blog. Having worked for Rugs Galore for 6 years sometimes I forget that it wouldn’t occure to the consumer that the small rug will not look exactly like the rug pictured. This is why the blog exists, so that I may pass on my knowledge from the years on to you guys.

Here you can see 1’8”x2’6” version of the same rug. Notice how parts of the design have been removed but that it still looks similar to the larger scale version.

You can see from the two images that I posted here that the rugs are similar but far from identical. If they were in the same room they would still match and still have many similar elements. However, the designers had to design a new rug for each new size so that the points in the rug could be utilized and still allow the rug to match. Of course they don’t always make a smaller less detailed version, with rug without borders that utilize a larger print it is not uncommon for them to shrink it down a little and only use part of the pattern in the smaller one in order to retain a lot of the detail in a particular flower or design instead.  That though, is for another blog post.

Remember if you ever have a question about a rug you can always give us a call at 1-800-275-7020, we are more happy to help and share what we know with you.  Most of the time even if we haven’t seen the smaller version of a rug we can tell what the redesign is most likely to look like.