19 of the Best Statement Rugs You Can Get on a Budget

The first large area rug I purchased was something of an accident. I wanted a statement piece for my space, and after much deliberation, I landed on a pretty printed rug I’d spotted on Amazon: It was pink, navy and orange, and more importantly, it was affordable.

I planned to put the rug between my two couches; it’d be long enough to just slide under the front feet of each, but small enough to take up only a portion of my living room. (Which, for the record, is large by New York standards—and small by everywhere else standards.) The thing is: I’ve never been good at guessing dimensions, so I bought a size I thought sounded right. Nine feet by 12 feet.

Imagine my surprise when I went to unroll the thing and realized it covered my entire living room floor—save a small border around the outside.

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Funnily enough, I actually preferred the large size to the small one I initially planned for. (I also didn’t feel like rolling up a massive rug and carrying it to the nearest post office just to mail it back to Amazon.) It filled the space without overwhelming it, making the room feel homey in a way a smaller rug wouldn’t have.

Plus, it pulled so many disparate elements together. The turquoise bits accented a lamp I’d snagged from a flea market, the navy blues complemented my colorful wall art and the orangey-pinks kept the room from losing itself in a cool color palette. Seeing it unrolled—working in tandem with the other pieces in my home—made me genuinely thankful for my slip-up.

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Just last week, my friend’s aunt complimented me on the rug. “So many people buy smaller rugs than they need—they’re afraid to go as big as they really should,” she said. I nodded, too embarrassed to admit my failure to conceptualize dimensions actually saved me from myself on this one.

But now that I’ve been forced to see the light, I really, really do. Large area rugs can be the difference between a cute apartment and an incredible one. And yes, when I say large, I mean large.

Flip through the below slideshow to get a glimpse at some truly stunning statement rugs on the market right now—all of which you can score on a budget. Because you shouldn’t have to break the bank to turn your apartment into a stylish paradise, even when you’re buying a rug so big it covers your entire living room.