ordering a custom rug

I thought I'd give some tips from my experience ordering a custom rug. The whole process really is quite simple, but I did a lot of research and a lot of careful consideration prior to ordering.

Before anything I calculated the distance from the wall that the carpet would be by googling "How far should an area carpet be from the wall". This led me to a lot of pages including Apartment Therapys helpful post on the proper distance for spacing things. Most rules said that 12" - 18" was the proper spacing from wall to carpet. But when I measured that out, it felt that the carpet was going to look like a postage stamp. So I decided to leave 9" between wall and where the carpet would start.

More photos and some tips after the jump, if ordering a custom rug is something you're considering.

9" between baseboard and carpet

Factoring in 9" spacing between the wall and where my carpet would be, gave me some good starting points for measurements.

I like the look of the carpet being slightly under the couch, so I started measuring here and then right to the bookcases factoring in a 9" spacing from the bookcases. 

Although you can do a lot of different binding/edge/borders, I went with a very simple binding of the darker colour of the stripes. It kept it clean and simple. If you had a larger room with less going on you may consider a thicker binding like they have shown on the manufacturers website.

Here is the thing with buying custom sized rugs. You'll generally have leftover pieces. Never let them go to waste and ask the carpet company to give you the leftovers. I asked what size of carpet would be leftover and it turned out to be a great size for in my office. So for a little extra money for binding, I have a new rug also downstairs...

New runner in my basement - only paid for the cost of binding it.

Hope this helps! - Lindsay

Source: We bought the carpet from Alexanian Rugs - the same people who we purchased our stair runner from. The rug is by Cortenaer and the pattern is Jubilee Pattern 34.