Lie Like a Rug

Our whole house made up of old, beat up wood floors or tile and we only have one rug and it is in the living room. It is a boring, green sisal rug I bought at World Market a few years back, which was an upgrade over the boring IKEA rag rug it was replacing.

Sisal is not a good material to have around when you have cats in the house. Our cats took one look at that rug and said "Wooooeeeeee!" and have been scratching it, sliding on it, and generally tangling with it ever since.

The lovely woman that cuts my hair, Anna, suggested FLOR carpet squares one day to me when I was complaining about my rug situation. FLOR has a carpet called House Pet that is specifically meant for high traffic pets areas. Well, I filed that away somewhere in my brain for the last year and finally thought about it again last week.

Flor has a lovely website and has, it seems, a million different patterns to chose from. Most of the carpet tiles are 19.7" x 19.7" and you can mix and match until you find the exact blend you want. Then you attach them together with these little round stickers. The nicest thing about Flor squares is that you don't need to put a rug mat under them and they are easy to wash and you can send them back to the manufacturer for recycling if you ever tire of them.

I looked through their online catalog and ordered five tiles. You can order cheaper 6" x 6" tiles as samples, but I wanted to see something a little larger. The plain gray and charcoal tiles are the House Pet and they are pretty industrial and don't go with our decor very well. I could see them in a family room or laundry room or a modern loft. The pink striped one seems to be a favorite of people who have seen these samples so far but if you look up above in the photo I took from the Flor website, it would be too busy in even our eclectic decor. But I think the real reason I am turned off from it is that it looks a little too IKEA for me.

I put the samples out on the floor and the cats started walking all over them.
I am leaning towards the pewter Mod Zebra. Funky, with a good nod towards our weird ethnic world look --I am thinking a poor man's version of Out of Africa with our leather chairs and couch and my ethnic jewelry collection on the wall mixed with the zebra. You can't see it in the photo, but I have a cow skull on the wall too.

I asked Trevor which was his favorite before telling him mine and he said zebra, first, followed by the stripe. So at least we agree. But I could always mix up the stripe with some solids. They also have a green stripe that might be a better blend. Any suggestions?