Rug options - fibre/website suggestions please

[SunnyUpNorth]

We have hardwood floors in most of our rooms, I think it is quite a decent laminate. It seems a complete waste to cover them with carpet but at the same time we had horrible, coarse, seagrass carpets in our last place and were really looking forward to nice, soft fluffy carpets when we moved house.

So I am thinking that a large rug could be a good option. We want something quite plain, not patterned. We need one for our living room and one for our soon to arrive new babys room. So both need to be quite cosy, but also reasonably hard wearing. They are both large rooms so I think we will probably need a custom made one.

I have seen websites such as Crucial Trading, The Perfect Rug etc where you build a customised rug. They have lots of options like sisal, jute, sisool, wool etc, then you add a nice border. I do really like these but they seem to be very, very expensive.

I am guessing that sisal, jute etc are quite tough on bare hands and knees (crawling baby) and that something like sisool or wool would be softer. Is sisool a good compromise between softness and being hardwearing?

I would be really interested to hear if anyone has used one of these online rug place and if so, which one and were they good value.

Lastly, is it an option to simply buy a piece of carpet to size and get it edged all the way around to create a rug? Does this work out cheaper? Would it just need some kind of non-skid backing on it?

Thanks.

I've used the Crucial Trading one and yes it is expensive. I wouldn't recommend sisal/coir/jute for a crawling baby, wool will be much better. Crucial Trading will border a piece of their wool carpet for you, but again it's expensive.

You can buy a piece of carpet and your retailer should be able to arrange to have the edges whipped (i.e. sewn over with a matching wool, in the same way that they edge carpet samples) - doesn't look as smart as a contrasting border but will be much much cheaper. If the retailer can't do it, there will be someone local who can.

Thanks fresh. I do like the contrasting edges but having a piece of carpet whipped (that was the term I was thinking of but couldn't remember!) might be a good option for the nursery.

I thought wool would be best but it does work out about double the price of the sisal etc.

On a related note, I've had a pure wool rug since shortly before DS2 was born. He's now 2.8 and it's still shedding to the point it needs vacuuming sometimes twice a day...

When will it ever end?! Poor DS3 is almost crawling and keeps ending up with the wool fibres sticking out of his mouth on his drooly hands.

Twice a day?!!!!! That does not sound appealing! I hadn't thought of the fibres either. Perhaps sisool would be worth considering as the mix might help calm the fibres.

Thanks both for your replies.