Urban flair: rugs with an industrial look for the home

Modern apartments with an industrial look

For some years now it has been considered particularly smart to convert warehouses, industrial spaces and factory buildings into loft apartments. Where those spaces were once fairly improvised, old factory buildings and unused warehouses are now renovated and modernized to a high standard, and comfortable, sometimes luxurious apartments have come out of it.

Giving a loft apartment style with the right rugs

Do you want an uncomplicated home that still embodies your own taste with timeless elegance? It does not take much to breathe comfort into bare steel beams and raw concrete walls. The right accessories, and first among them the rugs, work real wonders.
A gray rug picks up the gray of a concrete floor. It does not have to be steel gray, though. Colorful vintage rugs underline the trend just as well. Or the gray rug becomes a real eye-catcher for a modern apartment through a contemporary pattern, despite its plain, single-color design.

Gray rugs as a timeless element of style

Gray is not simply gray. The different pale and dark nuances set quite different accents. Picture a large room flooded with sun. A gray rug looks warm and soft, and it makes your good furniture, bright flowers and colorful objects shine and stand out more clearly.
There are various ways to bring the industrial style into your home. A gray rug is one base. You can also keep the furniture plain and combine that functional character with a green rug. The modern rugs offer so many ways to combine that you can play with your furnishings and let your creativity show through the whole interior.

Rugs as genuine all-rounders

New, modern materials make a rug indispensable in every room. What a good feeling it is to get out of bed in the morning and sink into a woolly, soft bedroom rug.
Or when your modern kitchen units form an alliance with an easy-care short-pile rug. Your kitchen takes on a different face at once. The cool, functional room turns into a comfortable living space.
Modern rugs are so well equipped in material and quality that small mishaps in the kitchen, the dining room or a child's room cannot harm them.
The smooth upper layer wipes clean quickly and stains have no chance.

Snug high-pile rugs

As mentioned, a soft high-pile rug in the bedroom is perfect for making it easier to get up. It has an incomparable effect in the living room too, and creates a warm atmosphere. Made from natural products, a woven high-pile rug stores warmth. That makes itself pleasantly felt when you have radiant floor heating as well.
Your industrial-design furnishings stand in fine contrast to the warm tones of a plain rug or a colorful vintage rug. Industrial chic tends toward the uncomplicated and gives off a restrained elegance. That puts your interior right on trend. Your own creativity, your individual taste and, not least, comfort do not lose out – quite the opposite.

You cannot go wrong with a gray rug

Rugs in dark gray, light gray or anthracite are available in different shapes and sizes, just as colorful or plain green rugs are. It is usually the simple things and combinations that let character and good furniture come into their own.
An anthracite runner in the hallway shapes the space and allows for play of light, a fine coat rack and other pretty decorative objects, without dominating them.
Runners in plain designs can have structure in themselves, tufted or woven.
A round or rectangular rug can fill “dead” corners with life. Together with a large rug in a pastel shade, or one with oriental ornament, it develops a harmony that gives the atmosphere of the room a sense of completeness.

Modern rugs with a used look

Have you ever tried placing a rug with a used look in your home? Particularly if you want to bring exposed concrete or stone walls into your loft. Or if you have antique furniture in shabby chic. Or if your concept favors white furniture or plenty of wood, in which case dark short-pile rugs form a fascinating contrast. In the used look they show unmistakable details that make the rug a one-off and your home look unique.

Material and care

For a rug you want to lay on a smooth floor, in the hallway for example or on stone floors in the kitchen, choose one with a non-slip backing. That way your rug stays where it belongs. It cannot slide, and the risk of slipping is avoided along with it.
Good rugs, whether short-pile or high-pile, are made these days so that they make no great demands on care and cleaning. Some can even be cleaned in the washing machine. In any case, regular vacuuming is enough. Stains can be dealt with right away with lukewarm water or a mild soap solution and cleaned off easily.

Where they work

Gray shades and their nuances are winning their place not only as a trend in fashion but in every part of the home.
An individual shade of gray is possible on any rug, whether a high-pile wool rug or a flat-woven short-pile one.
No part of the home is excluded. Plain rugs have long been the favorites for the kitchen and the hallway.
In the living area and in the bathroom, black rugs were the thing for a long time. The softer gray has since taken over from that sharp contrast. And outdoors too, on patios and balconies, the various grays now dominate the range alongside the green rugs.

Conclusion

Show your own personal note in the choice of furniture, of accessories and of your rugs.
The old bedside rug was long ago replaced by a soft, warm bedroom rug in natural fibers, and by modern synthetic rugs.
Modern loft apartments are firmly in fashion. Live out your creativity and turn a once-dreary workshop into a treasure box, with rugs and decorative extras.

A warm, relaxed atmosphere takes you in with its calming effect when you come home after a full day at work.
Dare to play with contrasts. Industrial charm combined with playful details, and rugs in fluffy weaves, high pile or with fringes, give your home an unmistakable touch.
Not everyone can realize the dream of a loft apartment in the city. With the right materials, though, you can recreate the industrial style – and then a gray or anthracite rug absolutely belongs to it.