Need advice on finding a big area rug....cant have carpet :(

[Jen78fl]

Hi all. Well we are going to be moving next month to the ft lauderdale area.. I have found out that the majority of houses down there have either tile or hardwood in the living room...We have a 22 month old and with her being in the living room playing most of the time, I am worried about her falling and hurting herself on the hard floor.. So I really want to have carpet but it sounds like its almost impossible to find down there, unless you are renting an apartment maybe... We would like to rent a house (definitely not buying).

Anyway, so we are going to need a big area rug. I would like for it to cover the majority of our living room (not sure how big that will be yet)... So does anyone have a rough idea of the size would I need? And how much should we prepare to spend? It seems like the big ones can get pretty expensive... but since we cant have carpet, I dont know what else to do...

I really appreciate any advice on area rugs and the best places to get them. Thanks all for your help!

Jennifer

[mommy2maya]

I wouldn't worry about carpet for falls. We have hardwood in our house, and tile in the basement, and never have had an injury from falling. I especially wouldn't worry about an almost two year old falling.

That said, if you are set on a rug, I have gotten some area rugs at home depot, Target and IKEA.

[Llyra]

I've bought inexpensive area rugs from BJs and Home Depot, for my living room and basement. As far as the size, you'll need to measure your room, and look at your furniture arrangement, and decide what size works best for you. We had to plan, for example, for a size that would accommodate my piano- if I had a bigger rug, one leg of the piano would be on the rug, and one off, which wouldn't be stable.

I find it's nice to have bare floor near any doors to the outside, too, and right outside bathrooms, so that you're not constantly having to clean the rug. It's a lot easier to mop a floor than it is to clean the carpet, for mud tracked in from outside or a puddle from a LO who didn't make it to the bathroom on time.

[daytripper75]

I just bought a 7 x 11 rug from Garden Ridge for $99. Super pretty too! Also you can get remnant of carpets from carpeting stores bound for not too much money. We recently bought a 12 x 20 remnant and had it bound for the basement for under $200.

[ElaynesMom]

You could also look into carpet tiles, and make it as big/small as you like.

[luv-my-boys]

a couple of ideas of what you could do

1 carpet tiles...that way you can get the exact size you want plus your not pyaing for carpet under large pieces of furniture

2. you might want to look into have the edges finished at a carpet place they sort of bind the edges. It can be less expensive depending on how large you are considering. the basically heat seal the edges to keep it from fraying

3. I have seen larger 11x ? which are considered "room size" at places like ikea, QVC (shopping channel) for roughly $300 a rug. Again it all depends on quality and material, a large wool rug will be way more expensive than say a cheaper polyester type rug.

[mom0810]

I like Rugsusa.com for good big area rugs that aren't too expensive. )

[galincognito]

we've just had plain ol' hardwood floors since both dds were born; never has it been an issue.
however, if you're really set on it, i think carpet tiles might be your best bet. you can do as much or as little as you'd like.

[SquishyKitty]

Ikea has some cheap area rugs.

You could also look at getting those play foam mat things for her.

We've always had tile or hardwood, and it wasn't much of a problem when DS was smaller. The hardwood especially, its actually not that hard. We just got DS some grippy socks when he started walking.

[columbusmomma]

[JamieCatheryn]

Originally Posted by daytripper75

I just bought a 7 x 11 rug from Garden Ridge for $99. Super pretty too! Also you can get remnant of carpets from carpeting stores bound for not too much money. We recently bought a 12 x 20 remnant and had it bound for the basement for under $200.

Same, 2 of our rugs were $99 from Garden Ridge, beautiful and soft rugs too. Carpet is nasty, I found out exactly how nasty when we removed the carpet in this house we bought.

[swd12422]

I'd wait til you have your house to see what you need.... If you decide you really want carpeting, you could get a large remnant and have the edges finished and put a carpet pad underneath for padding. Or just get a smaller area rug to make a "play area" for your LO.

Honestly, though, if you're worried about falls, I wouldn't. We have tile in most of our house, and DS is NOT slow. Never has been. He's smacked his head and face into the tile floor more times than I can count by now (he's 2y3m) and only bled once or twice. One of the times he DIDN'T bleed, he was in his high chair, not strapped in, and I pulled the chair out from the table, causing him to fall forward onto the floor, face first. No blood, nothing broken. Not saying your LO will NEVER get hurt, just saying they are so much more resilient than we think they are! So if you can't afford/don't want rugs, you don't HAVE to have them...

[Coco_Hikes]

Ditto to IKEA. We bought this rug for our living room when we were renting: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80094047
It was not stain-resistant, but it added the extra padding we wanted to our floor.

Good luck!

[annethcz]

I agree that it would be a good idea to wait until you've moved in before deciding what to buy.

I recently bought 100% wool rugs from overstock.com, and I've been SO pleased with them. The prices were great and the quality is good.

[StrawberryFields]

We have hardwood throughout our home and our ds is 4, or dd is 25 mo., and I have provided child care for 7 kids ages 4 and under. NEVER had a problem with someone getting hurt. In fact, we ripped out all the carpet when our ds was the same age as your dd because toddler spills, crumbs, and potty training made the wall-to-wall soo nasty!! The hardwood is so much cleaner and nicer for the kids to play on. I wouldn't stress about her falling and hurting herself, unless she is dive bombing from the ceiling or something! And the hardwood is really soft and forgiving, it isn't like falling on concrete. But we do have an area rug in the living room to make it more homey and also to be comfortable for the kids playing on the floor. $99 at Target. The upstairs bedroom has a rug too, $30 from a hardware store. I went with the sizes that just sits in the middle of the furniture group--none of the furniture is sitting on it. But they aren't playing around the perimeter of the room or anything so it is plenty big enough for them to sit on it and play or watch TV.