I have always thought of rugs as art for the floor. Along with the walls, they’re the biggest planes in a room, which makes them much more than something you put under the furniture.
In this loft, they became essential.
The ceilings are very high, with exposed beams, pipes and electrical lines overhead. I arrived with a suitcase full of carpet samples thinking we needed something soft, airy and quiet. I put them down and immediately thought: none of this works.
The ceiling was simply too powerful. We needed something on the floor that could hold its own.
Working with Rug & Kilim I went in the opposite direction, developing large-scale graphic patterns with an unusual palette and historical references. I don’t particularly like a room that looks as though a “fine decorator” has just shown up. I like tension and contrast, and I knew these carpets needed to work with the client’s wonderful collection of art rather than politely recede behind it.
Getting there took time. We adjusted the scale of the patterns, worked through the edges to avoid an obvious computer-generated repeat, and refined all three carpets together so they would relate without matching.
The result does exactly what I hoped. Your eye moves between the art on the walls and the pattern underfoot, bringing the scale of the room back down around you.
Who says art only belongs on walls?
Photography by Pam Connolly
