The bedroom rug, at the foot of the bed or beneath it

In Varanasi, in a hotel suite on the banks of the Ganges, a NEPALESE RUGS rug answers the carved wood of the bedroom furniture. The principle holds for every bedroom: the rug is placed under the bed, at the foot of the bed, or as bedside runners on either side. The most comfortable arrangement is the first. Laid crosswise, under the lower two thirds of the bed, the rug should extend 45 to 60 cm on each side, according to furnishing guides, so that the foot finds wool on rising. For a 160 x 200 cm bed, a 200 x 300 cm laid crosswise leaves 70 cm on each side and extends about 65 cm at the foot. For a 140 cm bed, a 170 x 240 cm suffices. At the foot of the bed, a smaller format, from 90 x 150 to 123 x 160 cm, receives the first step without going under the base. At Diacasan, these formats exist hand-knotted in Nepal as well as hand-tufted in India.

Under the bed, the arrangement felt on waking

The rug under the bed is judged first at the moment one sets foot on the floor. It must therefore extend generously at the sides, where one rises, more than at the foot of the bed. The rule most cited by furnishing guides sets this overhang between 45 and 60 cm. Below that, the foot lands on the edge of the rug; beyond it, the rug reaches the walls and the bedroom loses its band of floor.

It is laid crosswise, its long side parallel to the headboard, beginning just in front of the bedside tables or beneath them. The lower two thirds of the bed then rest on the wool, while the headboard and bedside tables stay on the parquet. A few calculations, from the formats we publish:

• 140 x 190 cm bed: a 170 x 240 cm laid crosswise leaves 50 cm on each side;
• 160 x 200 cm bed: a 200 x 300 cm laid crosswise leaves 70 cm on each side;
• 180 x 200 cm bed: a 200 x 300 cm leaves 60 cm on each side, a 250 x 350 cm 85 cm and a generous overhang at the foot;
• 200 x 200 cm bed: the 250 x 350 cm leaves 75 cm on each side, and the hand-knotted 300 x 400 cm receives the entire bed, bedside tables included.

The choice between these options depends on the room. A narrow bedroom gains from keeping a passage of floor at the foot of the bed; a large bedroom can take a rug that extends widely and on which a bench or a pouf is placed.

At the foot of the bed, a smaller rug and an accompanying piece

The rug at the foot of the bed answers another wish: to mark the entrance into the bedroom, or to warm a cold floor without covering the parquet. It is chosen slightly narrower than the bed, so that the frame remains legible, and placed a few centimetres from the base.

The small formats of the catalogue lend themselves well to this. The Oblong of MINOTOR 2.0, in 90 x 155 cm, accompanies a passage and borders a seat, which makes it a natural rug for the foot of a bed. BESTIAIRE exists in 90 x 150 cm, in shapes drawn from ancient cameos and cartouches. GRAND NORD comes down to 100 x 150 cm, with its tousled wool evoking the fur of the polar bear. SUR LE FIL, hand-knotted in Nepal, begins at 123 x 160 cm.

A seat often comes at the foot of the bed. The Tribus pouf by Christian Signorel, in its oblong form, sits like a low bench at the foot of a bed or before a fireplace, and takes up the geometry of BESTIAIRE at seat height. We detail these pieces in our article on the cushions, poufs and mirrors that extend the rug.

Bedside runners, finally, remain a solution for bedrooms where the bed backs onto two walls or is surrounded by furniture. Two identical small formats, one on each side, are better than a single off-centre rug.

Which material under bare feet

In a bedroom, material matters more than anywhere else, because it is the only room where the rug is touched every day barefoot. Himalayan wool, spun by hand in Nepal, keeps a natural irregularity that one feels under the sole of the foot; it also catches the light differently according to the angle and the hour, which matters in a room seen mostly in the morning and the evening.

Hand-knotting is supple: it folds, it hugs the floor, and it acquires a patina over time, like a fine piece of furniture. Hand-tufting in India, stiffer, uses a very pure New Zealand wool, which keeps pale tones clean, from ecrus to whites. Some collections combine wool with Tencel, a fibre that brings suppleness and sheen: this is the case of VUE DU CIEL and MINOTOR 2.0. GRAND NORD, for its part, plays on the thickness of a tousled wool, dense and irregular.

There is no right material in the absolute, only a material right for a given bedroom. At the showroom, the most telling thing is to take off one's shoes: the difference between a hand-spun wool and a tufted wool is understood in a few steps.

The colour of a bedroom is looked at at two moments of the day

A bedroom is lived in mostly on waking and in the evening, under two very different lights. It is at those moments that the colour of the rug should be judged, rather than in the middle of the afternoon. A rug seen at the showroom, under studied lighting, changes its bearing once laid at home, and that is normal: wool takes on the light of the place.

Himalayan wool, hand-spun, reacts to the angle of the daylight and gives nuances that shift through the hours. The New Zealand wool used in India, very pure, holds clean ecrus and whites, without stains. The founder warns against what she calls dead wools: rugs that turn grey after a few months, as if the colour were dying out. In a bedroom, where one looks at the floor closely and for long, the difference is quickly noticed.

To go further on shades, our article on choosing the colour of a rug starts from the light of the room before the colour chart.

What a suite on the banks of the Ganges shows

The hotel suite in Varanasi sums up what we look for in a bedroom. The hotel wished to inscribe its history in a contemporary piece, one that would converse with the spirituality of the place without imitating its codes. A NEPALESE RUGS rug, sober and timeless, hand-knotted in Nepal, answered. It accompanies the carved wood of the furniture without ever competing with it.

The choice also comes from a story. It was in India that Sandrine made the journey from which the house was born, in 2000, and it is in Nepal that our knotted rugs have been made for twenty-five years, in the same workshop. A bedroom on the banks of the Ganges with a Nepalese rug brings together the two stages of that road.

At home as at the hotel, the bedroom accepts calmer drawings than the living room: a material seen up close, a motif looked at lying down, a colour one finds again every morning. NEPALESE RUGS is the most direct collection for it; to understand what distinguishes a published rug from a catalogue rug, our page on the craft of a rug publisher tells the approach.

Himalayan wool. Hand-knotted. Nepal.

Text written by Diacasan Edition from interviews with Sandrine Demas, the formats of our catalogue and the hotel projects followed with our workshops, October 2026.

Sources: Wayfair, How to Choose the Right Rug Size: Your Rug Size Guide.