A large hand-knotted wool rug laid under a linen sofa and walnut coffee table in a sunlit room
Start with the room

Start with the room, not the rug.

Size, fibre, weave, and how it will survive a Tuesday. We explain the reasoning behind the advice — and say plainly when the honest answer is that it depends.

Everything we cover, in three places

Start with whichever question you actually arrived with — the three cross-reference each other throughout.

Recently published

New guides as they go up. Every one explains the reasoning, not just the step.

Styles & Patterns

Choosing a Rug for a Dark Room

How to pick a rug that brightens a dark room, with guidance on tone, texture, pattern and testing colour under real light.

Materials & Construction

Are Recycled-Fibre Rugs Any Good?

Recycled-fibre rugs vary widely in durability and feel. Here's what they're made from, where they excel, and where they fall short.

Four questions we get constantly

Answered in a sentence, with the full reasoning a click away.

Q

Can I put a wool rug in the washing machine?

No. Agitation and heat felt wool permanently — it comes out smaller, stiffer and paler, and it cannot be reversed. Read more →

Q

Does all the furniture have to sit on the rug?

No. Front legs on is a perfectly good layout. What matters is that the rug reads as one zone rather than floating in the middle of the floor. Read more →

Q

Is fringe proof a rug is hand-knotted?

Not on its own — fringe is often sewn on afterwards. Turn the rug over and look at the back instead; that is where the answer is. Read more →

Q

Why is my new wool rug shedding?

Cut pile releases short fibres for the first few months, which is normal. Shedding that never settles down points to construction quality instead. Read more →

How we work

An independent reference site. No shop, no sponsored placements, no ranked “best of” lists anyone paid to appear in.

01 — Independent

We sell nothing

No shop, no inventory, no affiliate rankings. Display advertising funds the site, it is labelled where it appears, and advertisers see no guide before it runs.

02 — Fibre-specific

Every method names its fibre

No cleaning or repair instruction is published without stating the fibre and construction it is safe for, and where it is unsafe. Damage from cleaning a rug is usually permanent, so a general-purpose tip is worse than none.

03 — Candid limits

We say when we don’t know

Age, origin and value cannot be settled from a photograph. Where that wall is reached, the guide says so and points at what an in-person appraisal would settle.