Love your blog — you’re inspiring me to get off my you-know-what and work more on my own house (if only someone would tell me where to start).
Anyway, I like Ikea for rugs — and they might be having a sale now. They’re not terribly expensive, the colors are decent, and the last ad I saw from them had some nice “Persian”-looking ones. or “oriental”-looking ones. Or fancy-schmancy ones without the price tag.
Keep up the good work!

A really simple solution is to buy a wall to wall carpeting remnant and have the ends finished. The nice thing is that you can make it any size you need. I am planning to do this once I have my floors redone as I can’t afford the size rug I need for my front room. You could even put a contrasting color border on it, by buying another remnant, cutting it into strips and attaching it to the main piece on the back using a heavy duty carpet tape, and then have a binding put around the whole thing.

Oooh – Ikea, I forgot about them. They’re really branching out lately.

Their site shows some interesting options (not available for purchase online, but it does give me hope that a trip to Toronto would be wortwhile!):

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=12&catalogId=10103&langId=-1&topcategoryId=15594&parentCats=15594*16206*16058&categoryId=16058&cattype=sub&pageNumber=0

I second (third?) ikea, but also, we ended up getting our dining room oriental-inspired rug at the Home Despot of all places. They had quite a good selection, and were pretty reasonable as well. I was kinda shocked.

I’d also reccomend Crate and Barrel’s quality, though they’re definitely more on the contemporary side, style wise

We’re always on the lookout for good rugs, and the following have proved to be reasonable sources:

1. Consignment shops — you can occasionally even find a Persian for cheap.

2. Samsclub.com — not even kidding. I haven’t seen the rugs up close, so I can’t vouch for the quality, but they’re awfully pretty.

3. Home Depot — We got an area rug from HD that I’m really happy with, even if their customer service and timeline was ridiculous.

4. Agreed on the carpet remnant/refinishing option. This can get surprisingly pricey, so it’s best to just periodically stop in to see what they already have done.

5. Overstock.com, of course.

I got a crazy deal from Home Despot, beieve it or not when i had our downstairs apartment recarpeted this summer. 10% off installation, free pad and a FREE AREA RUG UP TO $300. It was a great deal, b/c the floors down there are never going to be resentable in their current form. It was a Memorial Day sale, so maybe they have a similar thing around Labor Day?

Try:
http://www.buyrugsdirect.com/

Friends of ours have had good luck with this site. Good luck.
-Ursula

Do you have a Target in the area? I bought a Persian-style rug there for cheap knowing my little kids and husband would keep it less than pristine. Pottery Barn also has some pretty (but much pricier) options.

I found a $1300 wool oriental rug at Goodwill for $45–with not a thing wrong with it. I’m still not sure why it was there. It’s in my formal dining room, so the cats aren’t allowed in it, but it’s a really nice rug by Louis Poortiere (sp?) or something like that.

I have purchased other rugs at Goodwill too–braided rugs. I have my eye on a couple on ebay at the moment, because I need a new rug to go in the spot between my kitchen and entry rooms and it has to be 5′ wide.

Other than that, I have an oriental rug from Target in my living room (via Goodwill, but it’s really from Target) and then I’ve picked up rugs here and there at yard sales. I tend to go with the thought that it needs to be sturdy enough to last, even if I don’t pay a lot of money for it.

My Dad has bought rugs at Home Depot that are really nice too.

http://www.ballarddesigns.com/ has a good selection of rugs and they will send swatches. I bought some rugs for the kitchen from them and the service was top-notch.

Hardwood floors just cry out for nice rugs, don’t they? I thought the same thing when we moved to our old Italianate.

I know what you mean about the iffiness of eBay, but here’s a seller I can actually vouch for. His eBay name is pakobelrugs:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZpakobelrugs

Now, you’re right about colors. If you absolutely must match something else, it’s best not to rely on colors displayed on your monitor, but if you can deal with a little variation, you really can’t get better deals on real hand-knotted Persian rugs. I also like that his shipping prices are far cheaper than any other mail-order type deal I saw. I have 6 rugs (one is 10′ x 13′!) I purchased from pakobelrugs and I really love all of them. Be sure and pay attention to any flaws and worn places he discloses. He always is very honest about those. Often, if you’re picky and watch his inventory, you can get a very nice, colorful, used rug for a very reasonable price.

Happy hunting!

I’ve bought two Pottery Barn rugs off of ebay and I’ve been very happy with both of them… shipping wasn’t cheap but it was reasonable, and I saved a LOT of money from what Pottery Barn would have charged. Pottery Barn rugs shed a lot though!

Hello Mindy, haven’t posted in a while, we are going nuts ripping up our guest bathroom right now…

Well, we’ve had tons of luck buying from Ebay. So far we have purchased 3 runners (2 silk and 1 wool) and 3 large rugs (all 3 wool) from various sellers on Ebay. NYCrugs is a great seller as far as I am concerned. We have been very happy with the color of each one. Good rug dealers on Ebay post true photos. Typically the photos are slightly more colorful than they are in person. I would say that we typically pay about $200 per runner including shipping and $600-$800 for the larger 8×10 type rugs. These would typically cost about $1000 and $3000 respectively at the local stores for the same quality and color schemes.

Here are some of the examples
http://www.santantonio.net/album/photo.aspx?photoid=2767
http://www.santantonio.net/album/photo.aspx?photoid=3720
http://www.santantonio.net/album/photo.aspx?photoid=3077

The runners were bought because they fit the correct size, and the colors worked well. The larger rugs (don’t have pictures of two I guess) were bought for the color and the sizes worked well. We were nervous at first too, but once we bought the rugs, and compared it to our rugs from TJMaxx, Ikea, and Pottery Barn, we see what a good deal we got on higher quality hand woven rugs. We also have a cat who likes to vomit and plan on having a dog at some point, so we didn’t want to sink a bunch of money into nice rugs that will just get stains on it.

We recently purchased a 8×10 wool area rug from Costco (it was actually from a store that sells Costco ding and dent). We paid $150 – the Costco price is $299. They have a variety of colors and styles. If you’re interested at all in sisal, wool-sisal or jute, check out naturalarearugs.com. They send free samples and they’re prices are great. We also purchased a wool rug and a sisal rug from IKEA to protect our newly finished floors as well – only problem is they don’t sell anything larger than 6’x9′.

(oops, I mean “their” prices – hate hitting submit and finding a spelling error)

You guys are awesome – I knew you’d have good ideas for me! I’ll keep you posted on what route we go, but right now I have so many options to explore I may not make a decision for weeks!!!

Thanks for your help ;)

http://www.homedecorators.com

We haven’t bought any more rugs from eBay since then. We get them all from our cheapo Moundville auction. Maybe there’s a similar operation near you. Seems like auctions always have a million rugs.

best deal ive seen on rugs is sams 8×10 i think wool hand knotted and $300. soft colors and traditional style prob look best with your style. also im all about got to touch it !!!! so i would not be able to do the ebay thing also seen some good deals at home depot. prob with marshals ross ect is the size pretty small. fiber is important here wool is heavier and the edges dont curl ive had good luck with mine. pet stains actually blott up well . good luck