When you’re planning a remodel or redecorating your home, you need the proper vocabulary to express what you have in mind. There are a few things that people get mixed up in interior design, for sure. Drapes and curtains, eggshell, satin, and semi-gloss paint finishes, and carpets and rugs.
Great News: the answer is easy and well defined. Except when it isn’t.
What Is A Rug?
Rugs are items that you can put on your floor, move around, load into your car, etc. They are not your permanent flooring. You can go buy area rugs at many stores. Then you put them wherever you want them.
What Is Carpet?
Pay attention. We said “carpet” not “a carpet”. Also known as “carpeting”, carpet is connected to your home. It covers an entire room or rooms, generally with no exposed hard flooring surface. It’s very common in bedrooms, but doesn’t belong in bathrooms. You put a rug in bathrooms.
An easy way to remember the difference is to think about the words that usually go with rug and carpet: area rugs and wall-to-wall carpet. Rugs only cover an area, carpet covers from wall to wall. Carpet is your flooring, you put rugs on your flooring.
But Wait, What Are Carpets, or What Is A Carpet?
Here’s that weird exception. When speaking of “a carpet” or “carpets” that is something that is neither for an area of a room, nor is it connected to the home. It is non-connected, it can be moved, yet it aims to fill an entire space. It’s large, and almost always handmade or manufactured to look like a traditional handmaid style. Often called “indian carpets” or “oriental rugs” (to make it more confusing, these are also called rugs, which is more correct). Also they go by more specific regional names, including Turkish, Persian, and more. Carpets and rugs.
Once you know whether you want to install carpet, buy area rugs, or find a traditional handmade rug/carpet, you can move forward with your shopping. Remember to get a rug pad during your purchase of any rug to protect your flooring underneath, and have fun!
