The Designer Trick for Choosing the Right Living Room Rug Color

When considering a living room’s essentials, it’s natural to think about which items you’ll need to actually use the space. A sofa is a must, of course, and likely the first item your mind wandered to. A television likely competed for that top spot, followed by a table to hold your snacks while lounging and streaming. But did you happen to consider an area rug in this exercise? As it turns out, it should likely be higher on the list than you may have first imagined.

“Rugs carry more weight—emotionally and visually—than people expect,” says Katherine Boone, director of design at Corador. “The color can be tricky because it affects the whole atmosphere of the room. Many people play it safe or try to match everything too closely, which can actually make a space feel more rigid than relaxed.”

So, to learn how to get this important detail right, we asked designers their best tips and tricks for choosing the perfect living room rug color. Here’s what they said.

The Trick for Choosing the Right Living Room Rug Color

There’s no singular best living room rug color. However, designers say this one consideration will help you make the right choice for your space every time: Think about how you want to feel in your living room.

“Color isn’t just visual—it’s emotional,” Boone says. “Ask yourself: How do I want this space to feel? Cozy, calm, grounded? Then go for tonal, earthy shades. Energetic or expressive? Try a rug with a richer or unexpected hue that still plays well with your space.”

Once you figure out how the feeling you want to foster in your living room can be enhanced by your color palette, use those descriptions as keywords to start shopping. If you’ve narrowed down your options but you still can’t decide, Malorie Goldberg, a partner at Noa Blake Design has this accompanying trick to share.

“Order samples,” she says. “Always order swatches so that you can look at them in your living room. This is a great way to get a gut feeling on what is going to be right or wrong with the other elements.”

Goldberg also notes that the search for rugs can often come with a lot of sticker shock, because they’re an investment. However, this shouldn’t push you to pick the most basic option to avoid a more steep price tag. “A rug is integral and often one of the few pieces that can tie everything together,” Goldberg says. So, if you find the perfect option, the price will almost always pay off.

A Cheat Sheet to Making the Right Rug Choice

Sometimes it’s hard to determine how you want your living room to feel, particularly if you’re on a budget and the space has to serve more than one purpose. It can also be tough to match your emotions to a worthwhile investment. To help you make sense of your feelings around area rugs for a living room, Boone and Goldberg have answers to three common questions.

Should a rug complement or contrast the rest of the room?

“A complementary rug can create a calm, cohesive feel, while a contrasting one can introduce personality and a sense of intentional layering,” Boone says. “I tend to lean toward harmony with a bit of surprise—something that connects the elements in the room without being too on-the-nose.”

Should a rug match a living room’s wall color?

“The key here is to really pay attention to a rug’s undertone,” Goldberg says. “Rugs tend to be neutral, which means that they are some variation of white, off-white, or grey, and those can be the hardest colors to get right because they are the most affected by undertone. Start by being mindful of the overall tones in your living room. If you get the undertones right, the rug will feel like a good fit. But I typically like rugs to be darker than the walls so that it helps ground the furniture.”

Should I pay attention to accessories when choosing a rug?

“Accessories are often where people express their personality through books, ceramics, pillows, art,” Boone says. “If your rug speaks to those pieces, even subtly, it helps the room feel layered and lived-in. It doesn’t need to match, but it should speak the same language—even if it’s in a different accent.”