apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I live in an apt rental and it has the dull beige generic carpet they all have. I feel like I HAVE to have area rugs to give the place some life. I think they look fine and pulls the room together. If someone doesn't like my area rugs on carpet, oh well, I don't care.

I've never liked the look (or all the places for dirt to go.) And I'm always convinced the rug is there to hide something.

The problem with putting a rug on carpet is that the natural nap in the rug and the nap in the carpet work against each other. Make bumps like you wouldn't believe (even if no one walks on it). Furniture on top of the rug makes it worse.

The only thing I have been able to do is use a “carpet to rug” rug pad. A "Universal - for all floor types" rug pad does not work. The only one I found was from Target online. It is like the sticky part of a post-it note all over both sides of the rug pad.

These work wonders, but lose their effectiveness every six months or so, and you have to replace it.

i say Yes, but it depends...
In my last rental apt, i had a HUGE living room space with wall-to-wall new (but ugly) gray carpet. i decided to float all the seating pieces and anchor them with a large plush cream rug. It helped to give the living room seating area some definition, and the rest of the area became like 2 other rooms.

Sometimes it does work. Our friends have put Flor squares on top of regular pile carpet and it works out well. I think a thinner rug material works best on standard carpet. If you have thin, high traffic carpet, then you could do a thicker, fluffier rug.

my landlord had put down wall to wall carpeting in my apt -- it is dark purple (I still can't believe it). it hides the dirt very well but makes me feel like i live in a black hole. i tried brightening the space up by putting lighter-colored rugs on top but they didn't work well, they kept on lumping up. a rug pad did not help. also i did not like the feel of so much material on the floor. (i actually prefer hard floors over carpeted ones anyway.) so i decided to just leave the dark purple carpet alone. arg!

First, that photo is so freakin' cute!!! From the eyes, I'm guessing this is a chuhuahua, which, as an owner of two baby girsl, I'm biased toward.

Second, on the matter of the post itself, I vote no rug over carpet.

I just moved from an apartment with wood floors to a carpeted apartment... and my rug came with me. Without any space to really store the rug, my only options were a) sell or b) put the rug down anyway. I love my rug, so I didn't want to part with it... and although I normally wouldn't want a rug down, I think it works fairly well... mind you, I'm in an out-of-grad-school-most-furniture-is-inherited phase, so my apartment isn't nearly as stylish as I would like...

Here's the thing, you have to keep the rugs small and maintained, otherwise it just looks a bit off. I use a small 4 by 6 under the coffee table and it works great. However HeatherHLP makes a good point, it will get bumpy and bunch up. That just happens with rug on carpet. But a quick tap of the foot and it sets back. =P

That chi is pimpin'!

reocurring is not a word.

if rugs are needed to cover bad carpet, then i guess its a necessary evil. but i find that area rugs on top of carpet or, worse yet, layered over each other, makes it look like someone is trying too hard. i am definitely not a fan.

If you use a large heavy rug on your wall-to-wall carpet, or a lighter weight rug anchored by furniture on the edges (sofa, chairs, etc) - there won't be any bunching/rolling issues.

However, if you use little lightweight rugs, you'll have floating-island syndrome and the rugs will roll up at the edges.

I've lived in two apartments with wall to wall carpet. I used a rug to help separate living space from sleeping space in my old studio and it worked ok. It moved around a lot and was hard to vacuum, but I didn't have a good pad underneath it.

In the new place we have some sort of high traffic berber-type carpet with a tight weave. The rug we have in the living room is rather heavy and has a very distinct (but not too busy) pattern. We haven't had any trouble with it moving around and it's easy to vacuum. I think the trick with putting a rug on carpet is to choose the color/pattern carefully. You have to find something that works with the furniture and also with the existing carpet.

You absolutely can, but the rug will probably migrate without some kind of pad. We have that cheap beige apartment carpeting right now, and have rugs on top of it, but we're always having to adjust the rugs because they move. The one in the living room creeps toward the couch and creates a stiff "bubble" that is a tripping hazard.

How excited are we to move to a house with hardwood floors? Very, and not solely for this reason.

The bedrooms in our rental apartment have clean but bland beige carpet. In our room we do have one small red rug in the biggest empty space, just to give some color. In the babies' room we have a big rug that fills most of the space. Both rugs stay in place with no lumps, probably because they are thick, heavy wool rugs. The one in the babies' room looks great, I think because the background is the same color as the wall-to-wall (it's the cb2 rug with big colored circles). So I would try either a solid color rug that contrasts with the carpet, or background that matches your carpet. And make sure the rug is heavy enough to stay put.

Yes especially for renters who don't want to damage the carpets!

I have old rental gray carpet and I have a huge faux-sisal carpet over it. It looks so much better! I was also thinking of putting another anthropologie style rug on top of that.

When I moved into my apartment, I didn't think twice about putting a rug over my carpet! I love the extra pop of color it gives to the otherwise dull beige carpet. Plus, (and I know this sounds strange) I walk around barefoot and I love the feel of the area rug on my feet.

i used to be firmly camped on the 'no' side of this debate... then i moved into a townhouse that features wall-to-wall beige boring-ness. on top of that, our unit has no discernable living and dining room -- they both take up one large space on the ground floor. my husband and i bought a large rug to anchor the living room side of the space and i'm pleased with how it succesfully delineates one side of the room from the other. so yes, rugs on carpet when necessary.

yes! i really wanted hardwood floors but got stuck with beige in our rental. always looking for ways to make it feel more like home, i.e. new fixtures, doorknobs, paint. for sure carpets are just another great way to add color and make a rental more personal.

This is done probably 99% of the time to cover a problem, and that's what it looks like. Can't imagine it as a design choice.

Bah, I love my rug, but it was purchased to cover something! Someone stepped on a tube of crimson acrylic paint while we were packing some stuff for the San Diego fire evacuation...

Sooooo, when we came back, I nearly died. lol it's about 4 inches in diameter... so, yes... we bought a rug to cover that little spot!

I use rugs on the carpet in my house and I love it. I have a very low pile (not quite industrial, but still, very low), tightly woven wool berber in the most neutral neutral of all neutrals. ahem. Sorry. In the most unobtrusive beige ever. It's the perfect backdrop for my wonderful amazing marvelous persian and tibetian rugs and helps make the rooms feel layered and textured -- if you like that kind of thing. And I do.

I say try it, and if you like it then yay! If not, return the rug.

P.S. Semolina, it is in fact a design choice here, and I get all kinds of compliments on it. Maybe it's not your style and maybe you'd hate mine, but no one has to like everything. :-)

The berber in my current rental is extremely flat, and I've had no problem putting rugs over it -- it's a lot like what kimg described. But I'm moving and EVERY apt. that I'm looking at has thick beige carpet that's just awful in every way. I think Amanda's picture sums up what it'll look like if I choose to use my rugs -- and I think I'm going to try it, for similar reasons! By the way -- is it somehow more likely that rugs are hiding a bad spot of carpet than that they're hiding a bad spot of wood floor? And who doesn't vacuum under their rugs? The hygiene objections just aren't registering for me.