At over 60,000 square feet, the handmade rug in the Abu Dhabi mosque in the United Arab Emirates is the largest rug in the world. It was designed and made by Iranian rug makers. More than one thousand weavers spent one and half years, using 38 tons of cotton and wool to handcraft this gift to the mosque in 2007. The rug was created in nine pieces so it could be transported and assembled in the mosque. The sections were hand woven together on site. It weighs 12 tons.
Such a large rug would never be accommodated in the average household, but many people wonder about the largest sized rug that is available to purchase for their home or office. Open floor plan homes can have an expansive floor to either show-off or protect with a rug. These rooms can command extra-large area rugs.
Area Rugs vs Wall-to-Wall Carpet
A home with beautiful floors, whether wood, stone or tile shouldn’t be completely covered. Rule of thumb indicates that you should leave about 12-18 inches of floor showing around your rug. A rug gives you the option of removing it for a while to show off the floors or change the decor with a different color, design, or weave. Rugs can be cleaned, stored, and pulled out for later use.
Opting for wall-to-wall carpet is a game changer. This type of rug is attached to the floor with a tack strip along the baseboard and is considered permanent. Although it can be pulled up the tack strip usually damages the floor.
But if you’ve just pulled up a wall-to-wall carpet and put down new floors, you’ll want to search for a correctly-sized area rug to protect your new floor.
The largest, pre-made area rug you can purchase from PlushRugs.com is 13’ x 21’. Anything larger than 13’x21’ would have be custom made and this makes your rug purchase an expensive endeavor. Custom sized rugs can be hand knotted to your specifications or made from pre-made swatches that may still be available in limited sizes. Custom rugs will also need the edges bound or finished as well as a custom sized rug pad.
Sizing Your Rug in a Large Room
A large room does not need the largest rug. Measure the space you want to cover. Consider leaving 12-18 inches of your beautiful floor showing around your room’s perimeter. For example, a room that is 10’ x 14’ might command a rug that is 9’ x 13’ or a little smaller.
You can also measure your space to place the rug only under the furnished area to create defined seating areas in an open floor plan. Your furniture can sit on the rug with about 6 inches showing around the furniture. This works for both seating and dining areas. Seating areas can also be defined with a rug situated only in front of the chairs, like a sofa with a coffee table. This smaller rug not only defines the space but shows off more floor.
For a reading corner, fill the area just near the reading chair with an area rug. Use a larger area rug to invite guests and family to enjoy the rug as their reading or play space.
Cleaning Your Large Area Rug
Area rugs should be cleaned once a year, more or less depending on the traffic in the room. A professional rug cleaner can take the rug to be cleaned or clean it in your house. While rug pads are made to resist water and drink spills from penetrating through to the floor below, it is not a good idea to steam clean your carpet that covers a wood floor. Let a professional handle the cleaning or take your area rug outside to the driveway or patio and steam clean it there. Return to the floor when it’s dry.
Take this opportunity to mop the floor beneath where the rug and rug pad stood to keep it clean of dirt, allergens, and particles that can damage the floor over time. It is a good idea to check often under your area rug to make sure spills and pet accidents have not gone through to the floor. You might have to spot clean.
World’s Smallest Area Rug
Rugs have been hand made for centuries by weaving, knotting, braiding and hooking materials together. It is a business and a craft hobby for many people. Hooking rugs is an easy way to design beautiful pieces for art and to use underfoot. It is believed that hooking rugs have been around since the early 17th century starting in England and these rugs are made using strips of material such as burlap, yarn, thread, silk, and floss. The more colorful the more appealing and crafters have used hooked rugs to make an art statement.
While a crafter can make a rather large rug by hooking, many of these are small area rugs. Some are as small as a doormat while others are found in museum displays. The smallest rug might be a hooked rug and was displayed in the Art Institute in Chicago. The display showed a hooked rug in a foot-tall room. The rug itself is not measured.
Another small rug found in an auction a few years ago measured 12.5” x 10.5”. Neither of these are registered with the World Book of Records so we may never know what the smallest rug in the world might be.
However, if you would like to buy a small rug for your house, the smallest you will find at PlushRugs.com is 2’ x 3’. That would look great by an exterior door, in front of the kitchen sink or in your bathroom. Regardless of their size, they still need a rug pad to keep it from sliding and make it more comfortable to stand on.
