Nearly every rug page on this site offers a free 18" x 18" sample — up to ten per home, yours to keep. Most people order one, glance at it, and decide in a minute. Here's how to get a designer's-worth of information out of it instead. The whole test takes five days and no effort.
Day one: put it where the rug will live
Not on the counter — on the floor, in the actual room. Color changes dramatically between a website, your hand, and your floor. Set it near the sofa or bed it has to work with and just leave it there.
Days two and three: watch the light move
Look at it at morning coffee, midafternoon, and lamplight in the evening. Wool and viscose shift character with the sun — a rug that reads grey-blue at noon can go warm silver at dusk. This is the single thing a store can never show you, and it's why we send samples at all.
Day four: the traffic test
Walk on it. Barefoot, in shoes, let the dog investigate. Feel the pile — a hand-knotted wool and a looped jute live very differently underfoot, and bedrooms want softer than hallways.
Day five: hold it against everything
Carry it to the sofa, the curtains, the wall, the wood of your floor. You're looking for two or three tones in the rug that already exist in the room — that's the connection that makes a rug look like it belongs (it's layer one of the layering formula).
Then order with confidence
Check the 30-second size rule, and go one size up if you're torn. If two samples both survived the week and you can't choose, send us a photo with both in frame — a designer will make the call with you, free.
Start in the rug collection — the sample option lives in the size picker on nearly every page. Order up to ten; they're yours to keep either way.