Neutral Rug: Ivory, Cream and Sand in Hand-Knotted Wool

A neutral scheme lives on texture. Hand-knotted wool already helps: the shade shifts a little from row to row, and the pile catches light differently as you walk round it. A machine-made rug in the same colour looks like a painted floor by comparison.

Pattern in a second neutral does the rest. A few charcoal lines on ivory, a cream lattice on sand, or a tone-on-tone design that shows only in raking light all give the eye something to hold. If the sofa, curtains and walls are plain, choose a rug with a visible drawing. If the room already has pattern, choose the quietest rug you can find.

A neutral rug needs to differ from the floor it lies on, or it disappears. On pale oak or light tile, a rug in exactly the same tone has no edge. Go clearly darker, to taupe, or pick a rug whose pattern or border marks its outline. On a dark walnut or stained floor, ivory and cream are at their best, because the contrast frames them.

Leave eight inches to two feet of floor showing around the rug. That border is what makes it read as a rug and not as fitted carpet, and with pale colours the frame matters more than with strong ones.

Wool is more forgiving than its colour suggests. The fibre resists soaking for the first moments after a spill, which gives you time to blot, and dry soil sits near the surface where a vacuum can reach it. Vacuum once a week with the rotating brush off, and deal with spills at once using cold water.

If the rug will lie under a dining table or in a house with small children and pets, sand and taupe are easier than ivory, and a rug with lines or a lattice hides small marks better than a plain one. Rotate the rug every six months so wear and sunlight are shared evenly.

One hundred and thirteen rugs. Sixty-six are dense, heavy Beni Mrirt, twenty-seven are lighter Azilal and twenty are Beni Ourain. Seventy-one have an ivory or cream ground, thirty-seven are sand or taupe and five are a natural straw tone. Forty-one carry lines or bands, thirty have diamonds, nine have grids, and four are plain; the rest have looser drawings.

Fifty-seven measure around 6 ft 7 in by 9 ft 10 in, the size that suits most living rooms. Twenty-seven are 8x10 or larger, sixteen are mid-sized, eleven are runners and two are small. Each rug is one of a kind, with its exact measurements on its own page. Delivery is free worldwide, duties and taxes included.