Many homeowners struggle with the decision of whether or not to buy carpeting. Laying wall-to-wall carpeting in every room of the house is expensive and difficult to maintain. If your home has hardwood floors, you may be reluctant to cover it with carpeting. On the other hand, carpet offers a softness that you can’t get with wood floors. For that reason, most homeowners who choose wood, laminate or other hard flooring opt to buy area rugs and use them as decoration tools.

Types of Rugs

Area rugs come in all sizes and styles to fit a wide variety of budgets and preferences, from oriental area rugs to cotemporary area rugs. Your price range doesn’t matter–you can buy area rugs that fit your needs.

There are eight general categories or types of rugs:

• Braided area rugs
• Contemporary area rugs
• Flokati area rugs
• Oriental rugs
• Persian rugs
• Tibetan area rugs
• Transitional rugs.

You can buy rugs online, from a rug dealer or you can buy area rugs at most major department stores.

Why Buy Area Rugs?

Area rugs offer a number of benefits to homeowners. For one thing, they’re much less expensive than wall-to-wall carpeting, especially if you need rugs for multiple rooms. If you buy area rugs, they’ll also be easier to clean than carpet. Different types of rugs can help hide imperfections like dents and scratches in wood floors. Buy area rugs to be used on top of carpeting to tie a room together or hide an old stain in the carpet.

Other benefits of area rugs include:

• Attractiveness: Many types of rugs, especially Persian and oriental rugs are breathtakingly gorgeous. They can serve as the focal point of the room and elevate the entire decorating scheme.
• Comfort: If you have wood, laminate or stone flooring, area rugs add a level of warmth and comfort to an otherwise hard, cold floor. A well-placed area rug can make an entire room appear cozy and inviting instead of sterile and formal.
• Noise reduction: Wood and laminate floors make a lot of noise. Ordinary foot traffic can be incredibly loud in a non-carpeted room. Plus, hard floors can create an echo effect for the TV, radio and normal conversation. Area rugs help soften that sound.
• Safety: Many types of rugs protect expensive floors from scuffing and scratching caused by furniture, kids and pets. If you buy rugs online or from a home improvement store, they’ll provide a soft cushion if someone falls on your floor.
• Versatility: Area rugs can coordinate with furniture and completely tie a room together. Plus, you can just pick them up and move them if you relocate, or simply want the area rugs in a different room.