Cowhide rugs can highlight your existing room decor by bringing in natural colors, tones, and textures into the space to make it feel warm and inviting. While cowhides are often associated with farmhouse and country styles, you can even include cowhide rugs in more modern spaces.
A cowhide area rug can often fit with rustic country decor, but it can also be paired with modern accents. When looking for accessories and decor to go with a cowhide rug, you can look for popular items such as vases, plants, books, poufs, and other decor that either uses the same colors or captures the design style you’re going for. For example, vases in contemporary design will often use geometric shapes, while farmhouse and more rustic decor will use more standard rounded vases.
Cowhide rugs are often pictured as the sprawled out, animal shaped rugs, and while that is an option, there are plenty of other options out there for cowhide area rugs that fit different shapes and styles. So, here are some guidelines on choosing a cowhide rug that fits your space.
Shape: The shape of the cowhide rug is a guiding point for choosing the rug you want. Once again, you can go with one that retains an animal shape, or you can choose a rectangular cowhide rug that uses the hide in stripes and pattern.
Position: The next aspect to consider is where you plan to position your rug. Rectangular, square, and round rugs have pretty standard placements either in front of or underneath furniture, but stylizing with a traditional hide shape may be a bit more challenging. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Living Room: You often don’t place large furniture directly on top of a cowhide rug, unless you have the furniture right along its edges. Coffee tables are fine, as long as they aren’t too big and don’t compete with the rug for the focal point. You can place smaller chairs along the sides of the hide rug, or you can even use a cowhide rug off to the side of the room to establish a small sitting area or reading nook.
Dining Room: Rugs are often placed directly underneath a dining room table, and while you can do this with shaped cowhide rugs, consider doing this when you have a small round dining room table. The shaped rug is meant to be a focal point in the room, so hiding it underneath a large dining set diminishes the rug’s impact.
Bedrooms: A cowhide rug in the bedroom can look great centered in the room itself or beside the bed, since you don’t want it to be too far under the bed and hidden from sight.
Entryways: You can place a cowhide rug centered in an entryway underneath a table or chandelier as a grand way of welcoming people into your home.
Scale: Scale is yet another factor to consider, and fortunately, it often comes naturally. You can typically tell when a rug is either too big or too small for a space based on sight alone. Just remember how it will relate to the other furniture and fixtures, and make sure they balance each other out.
Pattern: Yes, cowhide rugs can show off a variety of patterns. You can choose rugs that use the hide in strips or rugs that configure the hide into other geometric patterns. These patterned hide rugs tend to work well in modern and contemporary spaces.
Shades/Pairings: Cowhide rugs almost always show off neutral tones like greys, browns, blacks, and whites, and how these colors blend with each other is an aspect that adds to your room’s style and tone. Plus, the shades and pairings you choose can be reflected in your room’s overall decor and furniture. If you’re looking for truly unique hide rugs, you can also find dyed hides that use blue, orange, gold, and other hues.
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