Thinking of shaking up your living room setup? Make sure you’re not committing this interior design blunder that happens “time and time again,” according to a video on .
The mistake, with the use of rugs, was pointed out in a clip posted by Claire—who calls herself an interior adviser on her account —which has had over 48,000 views since it was shared on May 20.
A caption with the post reads: “I see this time and time again… here’s how to avoid it and how to do it better.”
She said in the clip: “I don’t want you to . So, I’m going to show you what it is and then I’m going to show you how to do it better. There’s an expression—go big or go home—and that fits perfectly with what I’m about to show you. You will elevate your space by getting this right and it’s easy, let me show you.”
“This is it, if your rug looks like this,” the woman says, as an image in the graphic shows a rug placed between some couches that are facing each other. The edges of the rug appear to just reach the legs of the furniture.
She explained: “We do not want a little teeny tiny rug floating like an island with nowhere to go in our lounge.”
Her post comes as the median home renovation spend was found to have surged in the past three years. It soared by 60 percent between 2020 ($15,000) and 2023 ($24,000), according to a survey of 32,615 users, including 17,713 renovating U.S. homeowners, conducted by home design website Houzz.
More than half of (51 percent) were reported to have spent $25,000 or more on their renovations in 2023, a rise from 37 percent in 2020, the survey found.
Living-room projects were found to be popular last year, with one in five homeowners (21 percent) having undertaken them. But kitchens remain as the most commonly renovated interior room (29 percent), followed by guest bathrooms (27 percent) and primary bathrooms (25 percent), .
‘Giving a Space That Sense of Belonging’
Claire continued in her popular clip, “So here are some examples of how we do it better,” as another graphic in the backdrop shows several floor plans with the edges of the rug tucked underneath the legs and edges of the furniture surrounding it.
She added: “A rug is a really good tool for zoning an open-plan living area or giving a space that sense of belonging and that homely feel.”
When purchasing a rug, Claire advised that you should be picturing the rug reaching the furthest point possible in your room.
She said in the video: “You must bring that rug underneath your furniture. And at the very least, you need to be putting the rug underneath the front legs of your sofa and beyond, if you can.”
“Rugs are expensive, we want to make sure we get it right. I always recommend masking up your floor area, putting your furniture all in its space and decide whether or not your rug is framing the space enough,” she added.
A stock image of a living room setting decorated with sofas and a rug. A TikTok user has claimed there is a “disaster” mistake that people make “time and time again” when it comes to rugs.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.