Rug shopping and small swatches.

Part I:

We bought our rug at the same place we bought our couch.  The couch was a custom color, so there wasn't a floor sample.  We had to decide on everything by just looking at a teeny tiny swatch of the couch next to a teeny tiny swatch of the rug.  At the store,  they looked pretty good next to one another.


When everything was delivered and we set it all up in the living room, I thought " The rug is so dark and overpowering... maybe I just need to get used to it"  I was afraid to complain, since we spent all this money and N was saying how much he loved everything in the room.

As each day went by,  I started hating the rug more and more.  Our walnut colored coffee table and console table just didn't look that great on it.  There was not enough contrast between the two.  The border around the rug made it feel so formal, like it belonged in a dining room.

But the worst thing has to be that every little piece of lint showed on that rug.  I had to vacuum every other day.

By December, I couldn't stand it.  I had to get rid of that big dark rectangle in my living room.  When we went back to Room and Board to buy a bookshelf,  I asked them if there was any chance of exchanging or returning it.  The salesperson there was pretty nice about it.  Even though it had been 7 months.  They were still willing to do a reassessment.  I was pretty confident that we would get back everything since we spend a maximum of 1 hour per day in the living room, we never wear shoes in the house and we have no pets or kids.


Yay for us.  We got all our $ back :)

I am now officially in love Room and Board's customer service. and their awesome return policy.
 
Rug return   : Complete


Part II:

Next up,  the search for the replacement.  Since I went through all that trouble to return the last one, this time I didn't really want to settle.  I wanted give it my best effort to find the right one.  Let me tell you,  rug shopping is exhausting.  Maybe it's just me, but I have a really hard time visualizing how things look all together.  The rug looks different hanging on the rack versus seeing it within your room.  The rug color also changes in natural lighting versus artificial lighting.

N and I spent the entire month of January and part of February rug shopping.  We refused to take the swatches home this time.  We wanted the actual rug :)  We wanted to see how it looked within the room.  We wanted to live with each rug for a week.

We rolled up each rug, transported it home. It was a huge pain lugging it up the stairs and moving all the furniture.


The first one we brought back was the Calvin Klein Urban Biscuit Rug.  I found the dark brown rug so overwhelming in the room that I went the total opposite. I picked an all cream color one.  I liked it much better but there was still something that was not working. I  thought maybe the room was too "washed out" the white wainscoting and the cream rug?  Or maybe it was a little boring ?  I did love the feeling of the rug though, it was so plush and soft under our feet, and there was absolutely no shedding at all.


We went back to California Carpets and picked up 3 more rugs.  I was surprised that they all fit in our little car.

Since we loved how the Calvin Klein rug felt - we decided to try the only other one they had in stock called the Linear Block Buff.   We felt it was a no.


The 3rd one :


The 4th one we really liked. It was a contender.  We actually lived with this one for 2 weeks.  We loved how the coffee table popped on the rug but in person, the lighter color of the rug was a little too similar to the couch.  This rug was also a crazy shedder.   It wasn't as soft as the CK one, it was kind of scratcy.  We decided to give it one more go before calling it quits.  We said if we didn't find anything at this last round, we'd keep this one.


We went to Macy's during their home sale and found this :



It's an Himalayan Art hand tufted wool rug,  really soft and plush.  My husband lovesthis one. I guess I like it.  It wasn't really what I had in mind budget wise but at this point, I've just had it with rug shopping and am too lazy to even attempt to go to another home store.  We are keeping this one. 

So what did I learn from all this ? One, swatches suck - you need to actually see the rug in your home and not just the little square.  Two,  I dislike rug shopping :P

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