Placing a rug under a coffee table can make a room look a lot more put-together, but it also has some very practical uses. Area rugs can hide spots and stains, protect the flooring under a coffee table from dents and spills, and provide some protection for small children and elderly persons on slippery floors.
Coffee tables are usually a focal point in a living or sitting room. When they are placed in a living room, they can often become the collection point and hub of the room. They are used for everything from eating d vase inner to doing homework.
In a sitting room, however, a coffee table is often used for little more than holding a magazine or a vase of flowers. In a rarely used room, this piece of furniture might only be used once or twice a month.
The decision to put an area rug under the coffee table is usually based on how the room is being used and the type of decor or atmosphere that is wanted. For example, a coffee table in a professional setting, such as a doctor’s waiting room, will rarely have an area rug underneath because they are hard to keep sanitary. In a busy room in a home, however, the area rug can serve as a ay of protecting the floor, table, and the people using the room.
If you are trying to decide whether or not an area rug makes sense for a room that you’re in charge of planning, consider these factors.
Weight of the Table
An area rug is able to provide a cushion for the four pressure points of a coffee table. Without it, a very heavy coffee table can leave dents in a hardwood floor or permanent marks in a carpet. An area rug is able to provide an extra layer of thick fabric that can help to spread out the weight of the table and ensure that it won’t leave a permanent indentation in the flooring.
Cleaning
There are several ways to think about keeping the area with the coffee table clean. Adding an area rug does give you an extra item in the room to keep clean, and keeping it clean can be a challenge. The rug will need to be vacuumed regularly, and periodically taken out to be professionally cleaned.
If the rug is going to be placed in an area where it has to be kept sterile, such as a doctor’s office, for example, it might be a good idea to just not have one. When trying to keep things clean, the less objects in a room, the better.
The exception to this is if the rug will be used to make cleaning the coffee table easier. A short pile area rug can be used to catch spills from the coffee table, preventing them from spilling onto the floor below. In the event that something does spill off the coffee table, the area rug will be able to absorb the spill before it soaks into the floor.
If the flooring underneath the coffee table is not able to be protected in any other way, an area rug might be the better choice, even though it will need to be cleaned regularly. In some cases, people choose to use a temporary, cheaper area rug that could be removed when a high amount of traffic is expected, but remove the rug when just the family is around.
Safety
There are several safety concerns that surround area rugs. If they are not secured to the floor in the right way, they can become a tripping hazard. When placed under a coffee table, it is possible for an area rug to not be noticed, causing a person to not only trip over the edge of the rug, but also to fall into the coffee table.
This sort of accident has led to some very serious injuries, particularly if the edges of the coffee table are hard or sharp.
To mitigate this, choose a low-pile area rug that extends out well beyond the edges of the table. Make sure the area rug is well secured to the floor, and that there are no loose edges near the borders of the rug. You may also want to consider putting some type of safety edging around the top or corners of the coffee table if you have small children or other vulnerable persons in your household.
If the flooring underneath the coffee table is slippery, there is a possibility that the area rug will actually increase the safety of an area, however. If the flooring is slippery, once again a person could potentially slip and fall into the edge of the coffee table. An area rug can give a person a firm footing in this area.
Will the Rug Look Good?
The final thing to think about is if the rug will look good in the room. Make sure that the rug you select has colors and a pattern that will match the rest of the room.
