You should choose a colour that doesn't depart greatly from your primary carpet colour. Unless you are looking to make a statement with your rug colour, you should choose a colour that is analogous to that of your carpet.

Use analogous colours to create a colour harmony between your carpet and rug. Find the tone that most closely matches your carpet on the colour wheel and choose a colour either side of that to find a harmonising shade.

Of course, a safe bet when buying a rug is to choose either white, black, or grey, which tends to go with anything. White shaggy rugs look great and will bring a cosy, traditionalist vibe to your room — particularly desirable in the living room or bedroom.

The joy of having a thick carpet is feeling the sponginess underfoot, so you probably don't need a particularly thick rug. A cut-pile or flat weave rug would be a great option to use on carpeting, particularly in the living room. They are thin and feature simplistic designs for a subtle yet attractive addition to your space.

For a thin carpet, a thick rug would be a great visual decoration as well as a way of making the room cosy and warming. Choosing a shaggy rug would be a great way to add fluffy textures to your space and make the room feel a lot cosier. Whether used as a statement or area rug, a long-piled shaggy rug offers a visible element of luxury to a room and a texture break that will attract the eye for all the right reasons.

Carpet is a soft, warm texture that is comfortable to walk on, but laying a rug on a carpeted floor can make the space even cosier. Your choice of rug should depend highly on the pile of your carpet, as you will be looking to offer contrast between textures. For example, if your carpet has a thick pile you should steer away from a thick or fluffy rug, as this could make your space seem a little too textured.

Laminate flooring tends to be single or at least simply toned, so you can afford to inject a burst of colour into your room with a rug that contrasts with your flooring. Using a complementary colour will provide the largest leap in tone, as it will involve using the virtual opposite of your flooring colour to design your room. Complementary colour theory is explained using the image below, which you can use to choose a subtle shade for your flooring.

A complementary colour is the shade that sits directly opposite your flooring colour on the wheel. Using a shade that contrasts so heavily presents a visual stimulus that can make or break a room's décor — use it wisely!

For laminate flooring, the likelihood is that the tone won't be anywhere near as vibrant as the above colour wheel presents, but consider your floor colour as a darker or lighter shade of one of these. Choosing a complementary colour will really help your rug to pop from the rest of the room, which is particularly handy if you are looking for a statement rug. Alternatively, you can apply the principles you have already learned about analogous colours to choose a rug that is only a slightly different shade to your laminate flooring. You are not limited to any particular colour theory, so use one that you feel is the most appropriate in the circumstances.

Stone and Vinyl flooring are popular flooring choices for bathrooms and kitchens due their waterproof qualities, but the downside is that water can run across the floor and be absorbed by the rug which can lead to mould formation and even decay in rugs made from natural fibres, if these are not allowed to dry thoroughly before re-use. Thin cotton dhurrie rugs which are relatively cheap and can be replaced regularly are ideal for such locations.

Some rugs will withstand regular dampness better than others however, there are also some materials to avoid in areas where water and spillages are likely such as Wool and Viscose Rugs. Flatweave Polypropylene rugs hold up well to regular dampness as they have generally lower absorbency than rugs made from natural fibres and are highly resistant to mould and staining, making them eminently suitable for bathrooms and kitchens.

With laminate flooring, you have more scope for which rug you choose, as laminate essentially creates a blank slate on which you can construct and create your room. Therefore, the texture and style of rug you choose is entirely your choice.

The likelihood is that you will want to choose a rug that has a warming effect on your room, in which case you should opt for a thick style such as a tufted rug or a carved-pile rug. Not only are these soft underfoot, and a good thermal insulator in your room, but they will also provide an additional element of style that your space may be lacking if your flooring is relatively bare looking.

Jute rugs, are great to use on a laminate floor although antislip underlay is essential to prevent slipping. The material is not stained easily, and is relatively easy to clean due to the fibres not retaining much dirt. They feature a beautiful woven style that is simple yet effective. Despite being soft to the touch, these rugs aren't thick and fluffy, and they are not designed to make the room cosy — jute rugs provide an understated and functional feature for a room that would look brilliant when paired with a laminate or real-wood floor.

Alternatively, choose a rug that is going to make the room look and feel warmer. An area rug might be a good idea for a stone floor as it will eliminate the cold surface of the stone and replace it with a soft, thick, feature to walk over.

Area rugs are designed to fill large spaces, and will generally take up much of the room. A sheepskin rug would not only be a delight to feel your feet against, but will actually warm the room from a visual perspective.

The fluffy texture of a sheepskin rug will give a room an instant feel of luxury and comfort, and the shiny fibres reflect light depending on which way they lie offering subtle gradations of colour. Sheepskin rugs are also very flexible in terms of placing in a room, as their shape allows two to be joined together if you wish for a larger area rug as opposed to a single cosy piece.

For a classic-looking floor, why not make use of a classic-looking rug? Some woven wool rugs offer an antique look due to the material being hand-washed, giving the appearance of a vintage rug that could just as easily be placed in a medieval castle. Their elegant appearance makes them the perfect choice for those looking to decorate their room with classic fixtures, or even those going for an arty, contemporary look.

Woollen rugs are popular due to their soft material, strong construction, and diversity in terms of design. Wool is long-lasting and would look great in your bedroom, living room or dining room.

There are several different ways that you can embrace a stone floor in your home, and the priority should always be retaining the identity of your flooring. Stone is one of the more uncommon floor types nowadays, and while it does have its issues, it certainly has its positives as well.

Depending on the look you are trying to achieve in your room, your rug colour can vary greatly. Stone floors are usually either grey, sandy, or black, which are all quite muted tones. This gives you far greater scope when choosing a rug — you may wish to go for a bright colour that achieves a striking contrast with your floor, or one that is similar in tone and will act as a subtle yet effective colour break in the room.

Here is a demonstration of how the same colours have different impacts when placed on different-coloured floors. While all of these colours stand out well on a black floor, you can see that they appear almost like a different shade when on the grey and yellow floors. Red is particularly striking on a grey floor, whereas blue really pops when placed on a sandy-coloured floor due to it being a relative complementary colour. You must consider the effect that a coloured rug is going to have on your room, and the extent to which the colour will pop when paired with your specific floor colour.

You can see that using analogous colours does offer a far subtler contrast. The black and grey floors look great when paired with similar tones, and the icy-blue colour really works well. The sandy-coloured floor is not paired with analogous colours to much success however, and only the sunburnt-orange colour really looks like it could form part of a room's décor. This demonstrates that some of the shades suggested by colour theory do not always work, and your decision should be a result of your own discretion.

Tiles are a great flooring option due to their vibrant colours and shimmering surface, and due to them being easy to clean are the perfect material for rooms that will often come into contact with running water and dirt.

The problem with this is that rugs can often become damp/filthy due to their absorbent nature, so it is important to choose a piece that is less susceptible to this type of damage. On the flip side, tile flooring can be cold underfoot and you will benefit from a fluffy rug that insulates heat.

A classy middle ground between a luscious thick rug for making the room cosy, and a rug merely for protecting the tiles from the rigours of regular foot traffic, is a polypropylene rug. This material offers a great deal in variation, as it is available in flatweave, loop-pile and cut-pile forms.

Polypropylene rugs can be used in all areas of the home as they are easy to maintain, water and stain resistant (although some oil-based stains may be more difficult to remove) and they are also mothproof, mould-resistant and colourfast. Rugs made with heatset polypropylene offer the best resilience and resistance to pile flattening.

If your household is one that experiences regular foot traffic with wet, muddy boots, it may be more practical to consider using a low-value rug that can be replaced easily once dirtied. Budget rugs are available in a huge range of styles from simple flatweaves to long-pile shaggy rugs and can be just as visually attractive as more expensive items.

Designs cover the whole spectrum from reproductions of classic traditional rugs to post-modernist style and, for a household where rugs are frequently changed for reasons of fashion or sheer necessity, cheap rugs could be a wise purchase.