12x15 Rug: When You Need One and How to Get It in Wool

In a living room of this scale, put every piece of the seating group entirely on the rug, back legs included, with at least 8 inches of rug behind each piece. This is the layout that only a very large rug allows, and it is what makes big rooms feel composed and not scattered.

Under a dining table, measure the table and add 24 to 30 inches on every side for the chairs. A table of 4 by 10 feet needs a rug of about 9 by 15, so a 12x15 gives room to spare. In a bedroom, lay the rug across the room under the lower two thirds of the bed, so that it extends well beyond both sides and into the sitting area at the foot.

A hand-knotted wool rug of this size is very heavy and arrives as a roll about 12 feet long. Check that it can get into the room: the turn from the hall, the staircase, the lift. Measure diagonals and not just door widths. Have two or three people ready to carry and unroll it.

Place the pad first, then unroll the rug onto it and adjust before the furniture goes back, because you will not be able to shift it afterwards. Lift furniture onto the rug and never drag it. Expect the creases from rolling to take a week or two to relax. A rug this large is cleaned in place or collected by a specialist, so find out who does that locally before you need it.

Machine-made rugs come in 12x15 as a catalogue size. Hand-knotted Moroccan rugs do not come in catalogue sizes at all. Each is as large as it turned out on the loom. In our collection most of the largest rugs measure around 10 by 13 or 10 by 14 feet.

For a true 12x15 there are two routes. One is to find a single piece that happens to have been woven at that size. The other is to have one made. A commissioned rug is knotted to your measurements, which also solves the commoner problem with very large rooms: the ideal size is often not a standard one at all, but something like 11 ft 6 in by 16 ft.

One rug in our collection is a 12x15: a Beni Mrirt in a natural straw tone with vertical lines, measuring 11 ft 11 in by 15 ft 4 in. The next largest pieces, thirty-five of them, are mostly between 9 ft 9 in and 10 ft 6 in wide and 12 ft 10 in to 14 ft 1 in long. All are Beni Mrirt, the dense, heavy type, and most are in ivory, sand or camel.

For any other size, our bespoke studio makes rugs up to 16 ft 5 in wide and 19 ft 8 in long, in the pattern and colours you choose. Each rug is one of a kind, with its exact measurements on its own page. Delivery is free worldwide, duties and taxes included.