Collection: Striped Rugs

A striped rug is the quietest pattern there is and at the same time the most decisive. Lines give a room direction: they make it wider or longer, they tie the furniture together, and they do it without ever becoming busy.

Fine lines that read as texture from across the room, or wide bands that count the moment you walk in. In handwoven wool, in flatweave, in a washable quality, and in constructions that sit just as happily on a terrace.

We have been choosing rugs since 1907. Free EU delivery on every order, and in our showroom near Antwerp you can lay them side by side and see straight away which way the stripes should run.

Which Way the Stripes Should Run

A stripe is the only pattern with a direction, which makes the placing as important as the choice. Stripes belong to the geometric patterns, but they are the only family within it that tells the room which way to face.

Laid across a room, stripes make it wider. Laid lengthways, they stretch it. That is not a trick: the eye follows the line and reads the space in that direction.

If your living room is shaped like a shoebox, run the lines across it and the room squares up. If the room is nearly square and you want length in it, run them from the door to the window. In a hallway there is only one answer and that is along the line.

There is a third direction too. A diagonal stripe breaks both axes and comes into its own in a room with no clear shape. There are few of them, but they exist and they are worth finding.

Fine Line or Wide Band

The width of the stripe decides whether the rug joins in or sets the tone, and it is the thing people misjudge from a photograph.

A fine stripe, where the line recurs dozens of times across the width, reads from the doorway as texture rather than pattern. That is the safe choice for a room that already has a lot in it, and for anyone who suspects a strong design will start to tire.

A wide band is a different proposition. Four or five bands across the whole rug read as a composition, and a composition needs room to be seen. In a small space the furniture cuts the bands off and what remains looks arbitrary.

The practical test is the coffee table. If a whole band disappears underneath it, you want a finer stripe or a bigger rug.

A Drawn Line or a Ruled One

Two kinds of stripe that look identical in a photograph and behave completely differently in a room.

A ruled line is machine-made and dead straight, with a crisp edge and an even gap. That reads graphic and precise, and it is the right choice in a modern interior where everything else is straight too.

A drawn line comes from the hand. On handwoven and hand-tufted rugs the stripe wanders slightly, thickens in one place and softens at the edge. That makes the rug warmer and less severe, and it is why our best stripes are almost all handmade in wool.

If you want order on the floor, take the ruled line. If you want the room to feel alive, take the drawn one.

Tonal or High Contrast

Contrast is what decides whether you will still be happy in two years, and almost nobody weighs it before buying.

Tonal works with two or three values of the same colour. Sand on ivory, two greys, sage on cream. The stripe is unmistakably there, but it whispers. It belongs in a room that already carries pattern somewhere else, in the curtains or the sofa fabric.

High contrast is the opposite decision and just as good. Black on white, indigo on chalk, rust against sand, ochre beside deep green. Then the rug with stripes becomes the subject of the room and everything else can stay quiet.

Look at the room rather than the rug. Plain sofa and calm walls: you can take high contrast and you will be glad you did. Patterned upholstery or a full bookcase: go tonal, and the result reads considered instead of busy.

The Runner, Where Stripes Are at Their Best

No pattern does more for a hallway than a stripe, and it is the most underrated thing on this page.

A hallway is narrow and long, and that is exactly the shape a line can work with. Run along its length, the corridor reads longer and wider, and where a plain runner only covers the floor, a striped one turns a passage into part of the interior. The sizes you are after are 80 x 230 cm and 80 x 300 cm, with 80 x 140 cm for a short hall or an entrance.

The same runner earns its place in the kitchen: in front of the cupboards, at the sink, or alongside an island. Choose a flatweave or a washable quality there, because that is where a rug takes the most punishment.

Stripes Outdoors and in the Kitchen

This is the one pattern of ours that lies as well outside as in, and that is no coincidence.

A terrace already has lines of its own: decking boards, paving, the edge of a border. A stripe falls in with them naturally, where a flower or a medallion always looks slightly adrift outdoors. Our striped outdoor rugs are flatwoven in recycled PET: no pile to hold water, colour spun into the fibre so it holds up in full sun, and dry within an afternoon.

Some of these rugs are washable, in cotton at 30 degrees. That is the version for a kitchen, a busy hallway or a child's room. Say the word and we will point you straight at them.

Round Striped Rugs, Sizes and Placing

With a directional pattern the format matters more than it does without one, because a band that gets cut off badly ruins the effect you paid for.

Buy bigger than feels natural. Under a seating group the front legs of every seat belong on the rug, and with a wide band you also want enough clear field left for the line to stay readable. Under a dining table allow 60 cm all round, so a chair can push back without dropping off the edge.

Round striped rugs do something a rectangle cannot: the line runs through the circle and shortens at both ends, so the direction stays visible without the room being pointed anywhere. Ø 200 cm works under a seating group, Ø 240 cm when the seating is generous.

Order online with free EU delivery, or come and see us in our rug shop and showroom in Willebroek, in the Antwerp region, easily reached from Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and Sint-Niklaas. Bring the measurements of the room and tell us where the door and the window are. Then we will tell you which way the stripes should run.