Guide · For the trade
Floral rugs: scale, construction and where a botanical rug carries a room
Floral rugs come in four families a designer should name before sourcing: the traditional all-over or medallion floral descended from Persian and Aubusson patterns; the vintage floral, the same patterns faded and abraded; the botanical rug, a leaf, branch or fern drawn large with no blossom; and the modern floral, a single oversized flower or a painterly scatter. The scale of the motif, not the color, decides where it works: a motif under 6 inches reads as texture under furniture, a motif over 18 inches needs open floor to be seen. We carry 131 floral and botanical styles, 45 of them Wilton and 21 hand-knotted.
This guide is for the designer specifying a floral rug or a floral carpet and the junior pulling the samples: the four families, scale against the furniture, construction and what it does to the drawing, color, rooms, floral broadloom and its repeat and custom. Traditional pattern more broadly is in the traditional rugs guide; this page is the flower.
The four floral families
| Family | What it looks like | Typical construction | Reads as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional floral | Persian vines, palmettes and medallions, or French Aubusson and Savonnerie bouquets with a border | Hand-knotted wool, Wilton, machine-woven wool | Formal; the classic living room and dining room rug |
| Vintage floral | The same patterns with the pile sheared low and the color faded or overdyed | Machine-woven polypropylene or wool, hand-knotted with a distressed finish | Relaxed; works with modern furniture |
| Botanical | Leaves, branches, ferns, palms, grasses; no blossom; often one or two colors | Wilton, hand-tufted, hand-knotted wool and silk | Quiet; a texture with a subject |
| Modern floral | One flower at 3 to 6 ft, a painterly scatter, an abstracted peony | Hand-knotted or hand-tufted wool and viscose, custom | A statement; the rug is the art |
Scale: the motif against the furniture
Measure the motif on the sample, not the photograph. A flower or leaf under 6 inches across in an all-over repeat reads as a textured field from standing height, so it goes under a sofa, a bed or a dining table and loses nothing. A 6 to 18 inch motif needs to be seen in part; place it so the coffee table sits on the ground between motifs, not on the one flower. Over 18 inches and the single-bloom modern florals are 3 to 6 feet, the rug wants open floor: an entry, the foot of a bed, a living room where the seating floats at the edges of a 9x12 or 10x14. A medallion must be centered on the coffee table or the dining table, which fixes the rug size to the room; the dining room rug size guide has the numbers.
Construction and what it does to the drawing
Hand-knotted wool draws the finest line: a vine at 100 knots per square inch has a curve and a leaf has a vein. Our 21 hand-knotted florals, 20 of them from emma gardner design's custom program, are the ones to specify when the drawing is the point. Wilton weaves a floral with a limited palette, 5 to 8 colors, in a dense low pile that wears like broadloom; Couristan's Palmate, Palma, Summer Ivy, Persian Vines and Aralia are Wilton botanicals we cut for dining rooms and halls. Machine-woven polypropylene and polyester reproduce a vintage floral with a hundred colors and a sheared pile for very little. Hand-tufted is the modern floral's usual construction, soft and deep, for a bedroom. Flatweave florals are rare, because a flatweave cannot curve.
Color: the dark floral, the pink, the green and the blue
The dark floral, a black, charcoal or navy ground with the flowers in muted color, is the current request and the one that hides a living room's wear best; it needs pale walls and pale upholstery around it. Pink florals belong to the bedroom and the nursery and read as a neutral when the pink is a dusty rose on ivory. Green florals, the botanicals in sage, olive and moss, are the easiest to live with and the ones we sell most into sunrooms and dining rooms. Blue florals, Persian-derived in indigo and ivory, sit with nearly every wood. Pull the rug's second or third color, never its first, for the upholstery.
Rooms where a floral rug earns its place
Dining room, first, because an all-over floral hides crumbs and chair wear better than any solid; use a Wilton or a hand-knotted wool, 24 inches beyond the table on each side. Bedroom, for the softer constructions and the pinks and greens, across the foot of the bed where the motif shows. Living room, as the one pattern in a room of solids, 8x10 or 9x12 with the seating's front legs on it. Entry, as a vintage floral runner that takes the dirt. Where a floral fights: a room with floral drapery or wallpaper already, unless the scales are far apart.
Floral carpet: broadloom, repeats and stairs
Floral carpet is Wilton or Axminster broadloom, 12 feet or 13 feet 2 inches wide, with a pattern repeat the installer must match at every seam and on every stair tread. Repeats run 18 to 36 inches on a traditional floral, so a room with one seam loses up to a repeat's length to the match; write the repeat on the spec and order the waste. Small-scale florals, a 4 to 6 inch sprig or a trellis, are the wall-to-wall florals for a bedroom or a dressing room; large florals as wall-to-wall belong to hotel corridors. On a stair, a floral runner is cut so the same part of the pattern lands on each tread, which the patterned stair runner guide explains.
Custom floral rugs
A client's chintz, a botanical from the drapery, a flower that means something to the family: all become a hand-knotted or hand-tufted rug through the Design Studio. We redraw the motif at rug scale, render it in the room's colors, weave a strike-off of one flower at full size in 4 to 6 weeks and produce in 18 to 20 weeks.
Questions designers ask
Are floral rugs in style?
Florals have been on floors since the 16th century and are not in or out; what moves is the family. Vintage and dark florals are the current request, botanicals are steady and the formal Aubusson has a smaller audience. Specify by the room and the client, not the year.
What size floral rug for a living room?
8x10 or 9x12 with the front legs of every seat on it, like any living room rug. With a medallion floral, size the rug so the medallion sits under the coffee table; with a large modern floral, size it so the bloom is visible beyond the furniture.
How does a designer mix a floral rug with other patterns?
Vary the scale by a factor of three or more and share one color. A 12 inch floral on the floor takes a 1 inch stripe and a 4 inch plaid on the furniture; it fights a 10 inch floral on the drapery. Keep the walls and the largest upholstered piece solid.
Which construction is best for a floral rug in a dining room?
Wilton or hand-knotted wool, in a dense pile at 1/4 to 1/2 inch, so chairs slide and crumbs vacuum out. A deep hand-tufted floral holds crumbs and shows chair tracks; a vintage machine-woven floral works if the client accepts a polypropylene face.
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