Hearth area rugs

Traditional and contemporary hearth rugs

If you have a fireplace, then you know how easy it is for sparks to fly - and how far they tend to go. Fireplace screens go a long way toward keeping your expensive rugs and wood floors safe, but they're not 100% protection. After all, the time that sparks are most likely to be popping is when you have the screen open to add a log to the fire or to give it a poke and stir it up. Your best protection for those times is a hearth area rug laid over the carpet or wood floor.

A hearth rug is a safety measure as much as it is a fashion or style decision. By fronting your hearth with a fire-resistant or fireproof rug, you provide an extra measure of safety - not just for your floors and carpets, but for your entire family. To serve the purpose, the area rug that you choose to use in front of your hearth should be made of a fire-resistant or fireproof material, or be treated with fireproofing. 100% wool, for instance, is an extremely fire-resistant material, and most insurance companies recommend using a 100% virgin wool area rug in front of the hearth for added fire protection, or to protect insured carpets from damage. Sparks simply burn out on the fire retardant wool surface, and any singed areas can be brushed away. If you choose a rug that is made of dyed wool rather than a painted design, the char won't even show.

Most hearth rugs are a semi-rounded rectangle, and should be at least a 20 inches wide to serve their purpose. With the wide variety of design choices available, you can easily find a hearth rug that fits the decor of your room, from solids in every color of the rainbow, to designs woven with hearth baskets, hearts, subtle stripes, seashells - in fact, nearly anything you can imagine.

The most important thing to remember though, as pointed out before, is that the worth of a hearth rug is dependent on it being fire retardant or fireproof. Check the label to be sure that it is - and then choose something that accents your design scheme

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