The Best Rugs for High Traffic Areas

We tend to think about rugs as the cornerstone of interior design and home décor, but when it comes to high traffic areas of the home, things get a little messy (both literally and figuratively). If you place rugs in the way of heavy traffic, you might set yourself up for problems. Unless you look for the best rugs for high traffic areas, that is.

The reason why many people would leave the high traffic areas of their home without a rug is severalfolds. Some of the most common reasons include:

• Rugs will get dirty quickly, and it’s a constant hassle to keep them clean
• Rugs will slip and fold making it a stumble-hazard for all
• One can even stumble on a rug even if it’s not crumpled
• It’s much easier to clean a space if it has a homogeneous surface, like a hardwood or a pile, than it is with a hardwood+rug or pile+rug combination
• Heavy traffic areas are often cluttered anyway, so why add another element to increase the complexity?

Reasonable arguments, all of them. However it is easy to forget that as we say around here: if you can step on it, it deserves a rug. Not putting a rug in a room is a missed opportunity for an additional layer of character, design, and coziness. And high traffic areas are no exception.

You just have to make sure that you select one of the best rugs for high traffic areas, or at least you get the principles right.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the process of selecting the best rugs for high traffic areas, from raw materials to technical characteristics, to color palette and design. And we’ll top this up with an ample selection of specific product recommendations that were pre-filtered to check all the boxes for you.

So, let’s get started!

Rugs for high traffic Areas? But what’s a high traffic Area, anyway?

So what qualifies as high traffic area within your house or apartment, you ask. Well, this is a question that hasn’t got one correct answer, let alone a one-size-fits-all one. In fact, the only person who truly can answer your question is you.

As houses and apartments are wildly different in their settings, layouts and all that, the use of these spaces is no less different among various people and families.

Just one example that will immediately clarify what I’m talking about: there are people “whose best party is always in the kitchen”. And there are folks, who will use their kitchens exclusively to throw the deep-frozen pizza in the oven or microwave, or not even that: just to store the cutleries they eat the delivered food with.

With that said, there are generic answers that can be used as good rules of thumb. A high traffic area in a home is usually one or a few of the followings:

• entryways and hallways
• living room
• kitchen and/or dining room
• playroom or kids room

While it may seem that we have just listed all the possible rooms in a house, chances are that not all of these rooms have particularly high traffic in one specific home. So think about how you use your own, and tick the right boxes.

One more thing to note here. While every flat and every layout is different there are rooms regardless of their foot-traffic, where typically area rugs will work best (like the living room or the playroom), while others will cry for runners (think entryways, hallways, kitchens). And then, with a dining room rug, chances are that you will be best off with a special shape or size, like a round rug, a square rug - depending, of course, on the size and shape of your dining table.

What materials work best for rugs for high traffic areas?

It’s a no-brainer: the best rugs for high traffic areas need to be durable as can be.

When it comes to rugs, there are various components that make up a rug’s durability, but the most important of those is without doubt, the rug’s raw material. And speaking of the most durable rug materials, a few seem to stand out from the crowd:

• Polypropylene rugs
• wool rugs
• nylon rugs
• polyester rugs
• jute rugs

You could now think that okay, if your preferred rug is made of a material listed above, then you are good to go, but unfortunately, when we are specifically trying to select the best rugs for high traffic areas, it gets a bit more complicated. Not all of the durable materials are created equals for high traffic areas.

Since you are here for advice, we’ll make it easy for you. If you prefer to have natural fiber rugs, go for wool. If you opt for synthetic fibers, choose polypropylene. If you don’t know, then chances are that natural fibers are not such a high priority for you, so go with polypropylene, too!

Wool Rugs for high traffic areas

Wool is one of the most durable natural raw material people make rugs of. It is also one of the most common materials. If you pick a wool rug for a high traffic area in your home, you are very unlikely to go wrong.

Wool naturally consist lanolin oil which makes wool rugs stain resistant and easy to clean. They are also the softest and most flexible (and comfortable) of all natural rug materials, and when they are in good hands, meaning that they are looked after regularly and properly, they are among the longest-lasting rugs, too.

Wool Rug Ideas for high traffic areas

Sounds and looks convincing? Sure it does! On the con side, please note that wool rugs, especially quality wool rugs, are pricier than their synthetic-fiber counterparts.

Polypropylene rugs for high traffic areas

Polypropylene rugs for high traffic areas are difficult to beat when it comes to the combined ratio of cost, comfort, and quality.

Sure, polypropylene is a synthetic material, where the artificially-made fibers (that are often treated with extra chemicals to make them stain- and water-resistent, and in some cases, flame-retardant) are then spun into yarn and then woven or tufted into the finished product.

But hey, if you want to go natural and organic, it comes at a price.

Polypropylene Rug Ideas for high traffic areas

Polypropylene rugs are usually soft and comfortable underfoot, really easy to maintain and clean, and extremely cost-efficient compared to any other rug material, natural or synthetic.

With that said, a note of caution: a polypropylene rug (like most other synthetic rugs) will last anywhere between 3-10 years, with 5 being a good average. This is particularly true if the rug is placed in a high traffic area of a home. While this might seem like pretty short, this time frame is clearly reflected in these products’ price tag.

How about the other durable rug materials?

As you’ll recall we listed five durable rug materials, but recommended only two of them for the best rugs for high traffic areas. What’s with the other three?

Jute Rugs for High Traffic Areas

Jute rugs are great: they are extremely durable, have a very characteristic texture, and and organic look and feel. On the other side, however, Jute rugs for high traffic areas are not very easy to keep clean, especially when stains and liquids get in the picture. One particularly rainy day, an accident with the dog, or a spill of red wine or coffee, and you’ll have the memories on your rug forever.

Not necessarily something you want to put up with in a high traffic area.

Nylon and Polyester Rugs for High Traffic Areas

Okay, you won’t really go wrong with these. We decided to argue against them to make your life easier, because when it comes to polypropylene rugs, they are much better than both nylon and polyester rugs. A few of its advantages include:

• polypropylene rugs are usually cheaper than nylon or polyester rugs
• most polypropylene rugs do better when it comes to being stain-resistant than nylon and polyester rugs
• polypropylene rugs will usually stay in color for longer than nylon or polyester rugs, especially when the rug gets exposed to direct sunlight

So, once again: we have nothing against nylon and polyester rugs, and if you already have a rug you like and it’s made of one of these materials, go for it by all means, and you’ll happily use it even in the busiest room in your house.

But if you’re just hunting for the best rugs for high traffic areas, why would you settle for second best, when you can get the best all the same?

Machine washable rugs for high traffic areas

Now, with the raw materials out of the way, here’s one self-evident consideration. You want the rug you want to place in a high traffic area to be machine washable.

Because that rug will eventually get dirty, and very soon, too. And if your rug is as likely to get dirty as your tablecloths or bedsheets, why would cleaning it have to be a bigger hassle than cleaning those.

Washable Rug ideas for High Traffic Areas

Fortunately, being machine washable is an area for rugs that evolved big time in the past two decade, so by now you have plenty of machine washable rugs to select from.

From the cherished woman-run rug brand that introduced machine washable rugs to the market some twenty years ago, Lorena Canals to rug brands that specialize in machine washable rugs, like Ruggable (also a women-run rug brand, btw - is it a coincidence?) or The Rug Collective you have everything at your fingertips, and that includes a curated selection of machine washable runner rugs to choose from.

Low pile Rugs for high traffic areas

This, too seems like a no-brainer. For high traffic areas you want a rug that won’t be a stumbling hazard. In order to do that, the rug will need to be thick enough to stay in place and not to crumple, and low enough to make it easy to step on it with or without shoes, and with or without paying attention.

When you translate it to pile height, and add that, you probably want your robot vacuum to also be able to mount the rug with ease, you will conclude that low pile rugs (below 1/3” if possible, but definitely below 1/2”) are your friends.

If you’re worried about comfort, consider adding a rug pad, which is a great idea to avoid rug slips anyway.

Dark Shade Rugs for High traffic Areas

When it comes to choosing the actual design of the rug, high traffic area or not, there are so many things to consider.

What is the general design style of the room? What other colors and design elements are used? How much natural light is available? What is the color and the material of the flooring you put the rug on? Will the rug tie together the room as it should, or will it be a dissonant outlier?

And then, these considerations are all topped by your ultimate reason to opt for something: your personal taste.

But when it comes specifically to rugs for high traffic areas some designs and design trends will work better than others. And one of these is a dark shaded rug.

I don’t think I’ll have to over-explain this one, but a dark shade rug will be easier to protect from visible stains - for obvious reasons.

This might be counterintuitive for some (a black car looks dirty much earlier than a white car will; a black shirt will put up with regular cleaning a lot harder than a white one), but let’s just agree that the stains that are most common on rugs, like mud, are on the darker shade of the spectrum.

So our advice here? Go for dark shades!

Busy patterned rugs for high traffic areas

This one seems intuitive: busy patterns will hide minor stains and dirt much better than solid colors or larger, homogeneous patterns. In other words, stains (within reason) will simply blend in with the patterns of the rug itself.

This is particularly true to some traditional and transitional style rugs, because the patterns of boho rugs and mid-century rugs are somewhat more predictable and homogenic, which makes them more prone to being tampered by unplanned additions.

Of course, preparing for accidents should not always be the primary consideration for choosing a rug, so take this one with a pinch of salt (which works great, by the way, when you want to clean red wine spills).

Distressed Rugs For High Traffic Areas

Lucky you, distressed rugs are having a moment these days. Which is great, because they are a particularly good fit for high traffic areas.

Distressed rugs are made, deliberately, to look like they are rugs with “history”, meaning they look weathered even when they’re brand new.

This comes in handy for a high traffic area, because you simply don’t need to worry about whether the rug will wear out too soon or not.

Also, they are trendy, chic, and look great with a multitude of other styling options.

Outdoor Rugs For High Traffic Areas

Umm, I hear you say… but the high traffic areas of my home happen to be in my home.

Sure thing. The great feat of outdoor rugs is that most of them are in fact indoor/outdoor rugs. It’s the beetle - insect thing, you see. Not all insects are beetles, but all beetles are insects. Similarly, not all indoor rugs can be used outdoors, but all outdoor rugs will do well indoors.

In recent years indoor/outdoor rugs developed a lot both in terms of comfort and design. They are practically high quality rugs with an extra layer of protection that makes them outdoor-safe. And that is very useful when they are used in high traffic areas indoors and outdoors alike.

It’s like an SUV that you can actually use off-road. Almost too much to ask for, right?

Finding the best rugs for high traffic areas - conclusion

If you made it this far, you have all the skills and the extensive checklist that will allow you to hunt down the best rugs for high traffic areas - that matches your specific home’s specific high traffic areas, as well as your personal taste.

It’s not that difficult, after all. The trick is to not have more options to choose from, but rather less. Which is why we filtered out so many things for you.

Have fun with your rug! And thank us later!