A couple weeks ago I told you I had a new rug on the way for the living room.  I've been searching for months and months for something to ground our black leather sofa, to link our living room with our kitchen (which has white cabinets), and to bring some pizzazz to what was feeling like a blah room.

And I think I found just the right thing!



Here's what the old rug looked like.  Just a plain beige jute rug.  The neutral rug with neutral walls just wasn't doing anything for the room.

Before

As soon as I laid the new rug down, I felt the room instantly change.  It felt like a real "before" and "after," rather than just an update.


The wall art makes more sense now, and the bright pillows on the sofa make more sense now.  Not sure why it is exactly that the rug also helps the pillows, but it does.  Maybe just because there's more pattern in the room.  And in case you didn't notice, the pillows are different from the before shot.  I bought these from flash sale site Gilt back in October, but have never shown them on the blog before.  I'm still looking for pillows that have black, turquoise and red or coral. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find that.  The only ones I've found have a huge shot of yellow, too.  A little yellow is fine, but a lot of yellow doesn't work here.




I'm sooo thrilled with the rug now.  Just after I pulled the trigger and placed the order, I started having doubts.  I mean, there's IKEA's Stockholm Rand Rug that I've been crushing on for months.  But IKEA keeps pushing back the in-stock date, so I got tired of waiting. If you follow my board on Pinterest, you've seen some of the other rugs I've been considering.  I've been stalking the daily flash sale sites for rugs too.  I just couldn't hit the superfecta of style, color, size and price.

The day after I placed my order, I came across this photo on the Sixth Street Design School blog.  Kirsten Krason had helped finish up a room design for a client who whose husband is stationed in Paris. Thes FLOR tiles had me at hello.

via Sixth Street Design School

I immediately popped over to the FLOR site (mind you, I already had a rug on order), as I figured they would also have a black and white colorway.  Turns out this design had been discontinued.  I wonder why?  What a great look!

So I had my fingers crossed that the rug I had purchased would be the right one.  And it was!  It's about the same width as the old rug, but a couple feet shorter.  I just barely got the front sofa feet on it, and then was able to stretch it across to the gray chairs.  Anything shorter would not have worked, but this size just makes it!

If interested in the rug for yourself, it's the Dash & Albert Indoor/Outdoor Diamond Rug in Black/Ivory.  You can find it at several online retailers, but I got mine at Layla Grace (with a 10% off promo code I found at Retail Me Not). I purchased the 8.5 x 11 size, but it comes in several sizes and colorways.

What do you think?  Is the room coming along?