Tropical Area Rugs

How a Tropical Area Rug Can Highlight Your Room Decor

A tropical area rug can highlight your room’s decor by emphasizing the room’s style, color palette, and tone. Tropical rugs in particular can be as subtle or as bold with the theming as you want, and when you balance that with how dramatic your other decor is, you create a space where each element builds off one another and fulfills a specific role in the design.

Decorating With a Tropical Area Rug

Knowing that you want a tropical area rug definitely helps in narrowing your search, but it certainly doesn’t limit the number of choices you have with tropical rugs. These rugs come in a variety of color palettes, designs, and styles, so you have your pick with how you want to express your personal flair. 

Choosing Which Tropical Area Rug is Right for You

Choosing which tropical rug is right for you may seem like a daunting task, but if you think through these areas, you’ll be well on your way to finding your perfect rug. 

Position: One of your first steps is to determine the room’s layout and where the rug fits into that. 

Living Room: Tropical area rugs are often centered with the main seats, and depending on the size of the living room and furniture, you may have the rug sit in front of the seats, under their front two legs, or all the way under them. 

Dining Room: Center your rug beneath your table so that it grounds the entire set and leaves room for the chairs to be pushed in or pulled out. About two-three feet on each side of the table should be enough room for the chairs. 

Bedroom: One tried and true way to decorate your bedroom is to center your tropical area rug under the bed. Either place the rug all the way under the bed, under the bottom two-thirds of it, or some other position correlating with the bed. If your bed is off to one side, you can still use a larger area rug in the middle of the room itself to lead to the bed and connect to it. 

Kitchen: 2x3 or 3x5 tropical rugs fit well in front of kitchen sinks or stove-tops. Otherwise, you can even use a tropical runner along a line of cabinets, between cabinets and an island, or in a galley kitchen. 

Bathroom: Bathrooms can benefit from small tropical rugs in front of the sink, but they also work by a shower or tub. Runners are also perfect in narrow paths or in front of a double vanity. 

Outdoors: Tropical area rugs are perfectly suited for patios, decks, and other outdoor areas where you want to show off that tropical style. For layout ideas, look at similar indoor spaces. 

Shape/Size: Once you know your ideal layout, it’s time to think about the shape and size of the rug. Some popular sizes for small/medium spaces include 4x6 and 5x7 area rugs. For rooms that lean into medium or large territory, check out 8x10 and 9x12 tropical rugs. As for shape, consider which one works best in your layout. Rectangular is a common choice, but tropical area rugs are also available as round, square, runner, and even other unique shapes. 

Pattern: The design of the rug plays a large part in defining the rug’s style. Some tropical rugs will showcase one type of leaf (like palm leaves) while others will use a wide array of jungle leaves, flowers, and other imagery. Think about how bold you want to go with the tropical theme and which way it will lean, whether that be jungle, beachy, or something else. 

Color: While it’s true that green is a popular color for tropical rugs, that’s certainly not the only option. Other colors like blue, beige, red, and many others tend to pop up in tropical rugs as well. Focus on finding a color palette that compliments the other decor and furniture, as well as one that strikes the proper tone. For example, bright green leaves create a very different mood from forest green. There’s no right or wrong shade of color; it all goes back to what tone and style you want to evoke.

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