Welcome to the Jungle

Since I'm on a roll with Louis dining room updates, I thought I'd fill you in on what's followed the Louis into the room.

And that would be a rug!

Now before you groan about me launching into yet another long-winded rug-dithering-ey post (like my office one or the lounge room one), let me reassure you. I made this decision with minimal second-guessing! Can you believe it?

First, Tom needed a bit of convincing that we weren't being strange considering putting a rug under the dining table. Shots like these helped to prove that it's not only not-strange, it's fabulous...

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And then I began the dreaded rug search.

So... we have a round dining table.

And that immediately led me to believe that a round rug would be best. Particularly since we basically need to walk around that table to get from room to room, it makes sense to have a round rug to define the little dining space.

I searched and searched, and it appears to be quite hard to find round rugs that are more than about 1 metre in diameter. Since the table is more than that, the rug had to be.

And then I stumbled across this guy at Felt & Yarn, where they sell pretty spectacular handmade felt ball rugs. He didn't come in the width I wanted, but I emailed them and they could make me one with a 1.5m diameter for $420 including shipping.

For a unique, handmade rug, that's probably a pretty great price. I just couldn't bear the thought of spending that much on a rug that would potentially get food spilled on it. Plus, its pattern was pretty intense. With the blue rug now in the lounge room, I worried that that pattern would be a bit too crazy.

And then I remembered this inspiration shot that first made me want a blue rug in the lounge.

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Zebra!!!! Brilliant! The shape of a cowhide is obviously not round, but not being a rectangle either, it could still work beautifully under a round table, I thought.

I even found this guy dyed blue ($500 at Zanui), which is pretty amazing. Although I scrapped that idea the minute I thought about having blue rugs all over the place.

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Then I began the Internet trawling for reasonably priced zebra-printed cowhide rugs. And eventually I found one on Ebay for $300 (including shipping), which compared with the other options, was a pretty good price. Plus apparently cowhide rugs are low-maintenance and fairly easy to clean. Sold!

When he arrived, I immediately popped him in place (which involved quite a bit of furniture shuffling), and took a million photos, of course.

I must say, I've surprised myself. I never thought I'd be a cowhide kinda gal, much less an animal print kinda gal! But I like it!

And again, the clear Louis ghost chairs work really well, since you can see the pattern nicely through them.

 Unfortunately it does look a little bit like our dining table fell on a zebra and squished it flat. Oops.

But we really like how it looks with the blue shag rug nearby in the lounge room.

The lounge and dining rooms have definitely changed a lot in the last year! Take a look at this shot of yore...

Just a little bit different, huh?