Collection: Terrace Rugs

A rug outdoors does the same job a rug does indoors. It draws a line around the furniture and turns a surface into a place. A terrace with a rug on it stops being an area with chairs on it and becomes a room that happens to have no walls.

Which is why the decision outside is not really about the rug. It is about what stands on it. Get the size wrong and the most beautiful weatherproof design in the world will still make your terrace look smaller. This page is about getting that right. For the fibres, the construction and what makes a rug survive rain at all, our outdoor rugs page covers the material side.

Terrace, Balcony or Garden

The three are not the same problem, and knowing which one you have answers most of the rest.

A terrace is a defined, paved surface attached to the house, usually with a seating group on it and often partly sheltered. It is the easiest of the three, and the one where a rug does the most visible work.

A balcony is small, high, windy and usually overlooked. Everything about the choice changes because of the size and the wind, and it is the situation people most often get wrong.

A garden space is a seating area placed on grass, gravel or a deck away from the house. Here the rug has to hold its own without any architecture around it to frame it, which means it needs to be generous or it will look like a picnic blanket.

The Size for a Lounge Set

The rule is the same as indoors and people break it just as often. The rug has to carry the whole group, with at least the front legs of every sofa and every chair standing on it.

For a two seater with a side table, 200 x 280 cm is the working size. For a three seater with a couple of chairs, 250 x 350 cm. For a corner set, which is what most terraces actually have, you are into 280 x 390 cm, and that is the largest we carry in the outdoor collection. If your corner set is bigger than that, the honest answer is to place the rug under the coffee table and the front legs of the corner, and accept that the back of the sofa sits on the paving.

What does not work is the small rug floating in the middle of the seating with furniture standing around it on the tiles. That reads as a mat, not as a room, and it makes the terrace look smaller than it is.

The Size for an Outdoor Table

Here the rule is mechanical and worth measuring properly, because a chair that drops off the edge of the rug when it is pushed back will annoy you every single meal.

Allow 60 cm of clear rug beyond the table edge on every side. So measure the table and add 120 cm to each dimension. A table of 160 x 90 cm needs at least 280 x 210 cm, which in practice means a 250 x 350 cm laid with its long side along the long side of the table. That orientation trick solves more terraces than any other single piece of advice on this page.

The logic is identical to a dining room indoors, with one difference: outdoor chairs are heavier and get dragged rather than lifted, so a flat weave matters more here than anywhere else.

A Balcony Is a Different Problem

On a balcony every instinct from inside the house is wrong.

Do not run the rug wall to wall. Leave a hand's width of floor visible on all sides, including along the railing and in front of the door, because a balcony that shows its edges reads larger than one carpeted to the corners. Do not buy a runner either, or at least not the long narrow kind: the narrowest useful outdoor sizes are around 80 x 150 cm and 100 x 140 cm, and a true long runner is not something this construction is usually made in.

What works on most balconies is a small rectangle at 140 x 200 cm or 160 x 230 cm, or a round at Ø 140 cm. And check the door swing before you order. A rug that stops the balcony door opening is the one mistake you cannot fix afterwards.

Wind, and Why a Light Rug Travels

Wind is the part nobody plans for and it is the reason small outdoor rugs end up in the neighbour's garden.

A rug stays put because of its own weight and because furniture is standing on it. A large rug under a full seating group will not move in a normal Belgian summer. A small rug on an empty corner of an exposed terrace will, and a balcony several floors up is the windiest place you own.

So on an exposed spot, go bigger rather than smaller, and put the furniture on it rather than beside it. If a rug has to sit somewhere with nothing on it, a heavier woven quality holds better than a light one. And when a storm is forecast, the sensible thing is simply to roll it and bring it in for the night.

What It Has to Lie On

The surface underneath decides more than people expect.

On tiles and smooth stone a rug lies flat and stays flat, and water runs away underneath it. This is the easiest surface and needs no thought beyond lifting the rug occasionally in a wet spell.

On wooden decking, check the drainage. Water that sits between the boards and the rug will not damage a synthetic fibre, but it will mark the wood and encourage algae on the deck itself. Lift the rug after heavy rain and both will dry.

On gravel or grass, be realistic. A rug will lie on either for an afternoon, and it will not lie flat on either for a season. If your seating area is on grass and you want a rug there permanently, a solid base under it is the only thing that makes it work.

Round Outside

Round works particularly well outdoors, and the reason is that terraces are rarely the neat rectangle a living room is.

Under a round garden table the shapes simply agree, but the sizing needs care. A Ø 240 cm clears a 120 cm table by exactly 60 cm, which is the minimum and nothing more. For a table of 130 or 140 cm across, step up to Ø 290 cm or the chairs will drop off the edge. As a seating accent with no table, Ø 240 cm is the size that looks right on a normal terrace and Ø 140 cm is the balcony size.

A circle also breaks up a square terrace better than any rectangle, which is worth knowing if your paving is an exact square and everything on it looks stiff.

Several of these designs are washable as well, which on a terrace under a tree is worth more than it sounds. We have been choosing rugs since 1907, long enough to know that the outdoor rug people regret is nearly always the one bought a size too small. The collection can be seen in our rug shop and showroom in Willebroek, in the Antwerp region, easily accessible from Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and Sint-Niklaas. Bring the measurements of your terrace and the furniture on it and we will tell you the size. Free EU delivery on every order.