How to Get the Right Size Area Rug for a Room

Measure the size of the room you're working on to find its size in feet. Subtract 2 feet from each side to find the largest possible size of rug for the room. For example, a 10-by-15 foot room should have a rug no larger than 8 by 13 feet to allow for a 1-foot uncovered border around the room.

Look over the layout of your furniture. For large rooms you may have your room pattern broken into multiple areas such as a seating area and a study area, or a seating area and a dining area. If this is the case, measure each area of the room and treat each area as its own room to determine the maximum size rug for each portion of the room.

Decide whether you want the rug to extend underneath all of your furniture pieces or only under select portions of furniture. In small living rooms, for instance, having a rug only run under the front legs of two facing sofas may be fine, while the same setup may appear shrunken in a larger room where the rug should run under all the legs of the sofas.

Plan dining rooms to hold an area rug that is large enough to rest under the table as well as your chairs when they are each pulled out away from the table. Bedrooms may benefit from smaller area rugs placed throughout the room in front of closets or dressers as well as the foot of the bed rather than one large rug.

Measure the minimum size of space you want to cover in your living, dining or bedroom depending on the layouts of furniture as mentioned in Steps 2 and 3. Choose a rug that measures somewhere between these layout measurements and the overall size of the room as found in Step 1.