Christmas Living Room Ideas That Start With the Rug

Christmas living room ideas work when they start from the floor: the rug is the largest colored surface in the room, and red, green and gold either sit on its palette or fight it. Read the rug first, choose the two or three decor colors it already holds, keep it centered on the sofa and stand the tree off its edge. Then greenery, lights, candles, stockings and wrapped boxes do the rest.

Which rug colors hold Christmas, and which fight it?

Rugs in undyed wool tones, in rust and mustard, or in sage and olive hold the traditional palette, because red, green and gold already live inside those colors. An ivory, camel or brown floor takes anything from deep red to plaid throws; a rust floor takes cedar, cranberry, brass and dried orange; a sage floor takes cranberry, cream and warm wood with no second green. Rugs in teal, navy, pink or coral do not hold it; they want the season in cranberry, white, eucalyptus and metal, and bright red against them looks like an argument. A black and white check takes one accent, red or green or gold, never two at once.

Tamment, at the top of this page, is the rust case: rust and ivory checks with a cognac leather chair. A lit tree off the rug's edge, candles and clementines on a brass table and a green paneled wall turn that room into December without one new color in it. The red and rust rugs that work this way are gathered as the red and rust floors; the quiet base that takes anything is a plain warm neutral. Whether a rug should be the bold thing or the calm thing in a room is a year-round question, answered in decorating around a colorful rug.

The rugs, measured

The numbers below come from each rug's own photo and its catalog record, not from the collection it belongs to.

Tamment is terracotta over 45 percent of its photo and ivory over 42, so the floor already holds the season's red and December only has to add green and brass. Taqa splits almost evenly between orange and blue, 38 and 33 percent, two colors already in conversation, so the season adds nothing warm and only brightens the cool side. Azetta is green across 84 percent, forest green and sage bars with one mustard bar and a row of blush and brown blocks: the sage floor described above, so the season brings cranberry, rust and brass and no second green beyond the garland. All three are Dama designs, the checkers board set free, and their grids and bars give garlands, boxes and a tree skirt a line to sit against.

Where does the Christmas tree go in the rug layout?

Beside the seating, off the rug, which stays where it was: centered on the sofa, front legs on. A tree pushed onto the rug drags the seating off-center for a month and puts a dripping stand on wool. The window corner is the usual spot, for good reason: the tree reads from the street and from the sofa, and the rug ends 12 to 18 in before it. Beside the fireplace, on the side away from the door, the mantel, the stockings and the tree make one wall and the rug keeps its lane in front of the hearth. In a long room the tree tucks behind an armchair at the end of the rug, where the chair hides the stand and the tree rises over it. Whatever the spot, leave a clear lane to it for watering and for the morning the presents come out.

If the room gives you no choice but the rug's corner, a waterproof tray goes under the stand and the weekly routine for a floor under a tree is in the care guide; how a wool rug lives under a tree for a month is its own subject, coming to the Journal in the next weeks.

How do I make my living room look like Christmas?

A living room looks like Christmas with five things, in the rug's colors: greenery, lights, candles, stockings and wrapped boxes. Everything else is optional.

• Greenery. A garland on the mantel or along a console, a wreath on the wall over the sofa, eucalyptus or pine in a jug on the coffee table. Real greenery dries and drops; a tray under the jug and a shake outside once a week.
• Lights. Warm white, never cool, on the tree and inside the garland. One string too many is better than one too few; the tree should glow, not sparkle.
• Candles. Pillar candles grouped on a tray, tapers in brass on the mantel. Keep every flame on stone, metal or glass, away from the greenery and the rug's edge.
• Stockings. On the mantel, or on a shelf or a console when there is no fireplace, in the fabric of the room: knit, velvet or linen, in two of the rug's colors.
• Wrapped boxes. Paper in the rug's palette, a few under the tree from the first week. Plain kraft and one ribbon color does more than six patterns.

Then the swap that costs nothing: change the cushion covers and the throw. Taqa, above, is a teal and coral rug dressed for December: cranberry velvet cushions and a red throw on a cream sofa, white lights on the tree and through a garland along the back, and the teal kept. The sofa's own color decides the rest of the swap, and the sofa and rug pairing guide settles it.

How to decorate a small living room for Christmas

In a small living room, the tree goes in the corner by the window, the rug stays, and the decor moves up. A small room cannot give up floor to a second tree, a basket of logs and a sack of boxes, so the season goes onto the walls and the mantel: a wreath over the sofa, a garland along the window, stockings on a shelf, candles on a tray that already lives on the coffee table.

Choose a slim tree, 3 to 4 ft wide at the base rather than 5, or a tabletop tree on the console. Keep the rug: a small room with the rug removed for December looks emptier, not larger, because the seating loses the zone that held it together. The one thing to clear is the coffee table top, which becomes the tray of candles and a bowl of oranges and nothing else.

Azetta, above, is the sage floor dressed for December: rust cushions and a red plaid throw on the cream sofa, a cream and a cranberry knit stocking under a pine garland, copper ornaments on the tree. The green stays on the floor and in the greenery, and nothing else in the room repeats it.

The rug under the tree: how to pick it

1. The sofa sets the size, not the tree. A sofa of 84 to 96 in takes an 8x10 ft rug, a longer sofa or a sectional a 9x12 ft, with the front legs of every seat on it. The tree stands on the floor beyond its edge, so the rug is sized to the seating as in any other month.
2. The floor's leading color decides the decor's red. Where terracotta or rust leads, as on Tamment, the season brings no red of its own; where blue leads, as on Taqa, or green, as on Azetta, the red comes in as cranberry, rust or burgundy, in velvet or knit, never in bright paper.
3. Checks and grids take decor better than medallions. A gridded floor gives a garland, a stack of boxes and a tree skirt a line to sit against; a large central medallion fights the tree for attention and loses.
4. Pile short or medium on the path to the tree. The lane from the door to the tree gets a month of extra feet; a deeper pile belongs to the quiet side of the room, under the reading chair.
5. Wool takes the month's spills. Tree water, a candle's wax, a dropped glass: wool's own lanolin keeps a liquid on the surface long enough to blot it with a cloth and cool water, which is why the floor under a month of guests is wool.
6. Once the boxes are gone, the rug stays. The same floor carries the rest of winter, and the cozy version of this room shows how it does it.