If you’d asked me few years ago if I’d ever add an oriental rug in my modern living room, I would have told you no way. But this traditional style of rug has made a playful comeback in recent years with lots of bold, colorful options.
At the beginning of the year, we repainted our living room walls from teal to gray, and added an entire wall of white book shelves (get the details on how we customized these IKEA bookshelves). After the updates, our living room was feeling a little too neutral for my usually colorful taste. The one thing we hadn’t updated yet was our twelve-year old rug, but it had seen better days and was fraying at all the corners. I decided bold new rug was exactly what the space needed.
I started searching for a colorful and modern rug with shades of pinks and teals – colors I like to incorporate for all the seasons. After scrolling through a lot of geometric patterns, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon some gorgeous bright and bold, modern oriental rugs. Since I was aiming to give our living room a bit more of a sophisticated feel, as compared to our more casual basement family room, I realized that a more traditional style of rug, but with a colorful twist, would pull the room together perfectly.
While traditional colors for oriental rugs have long included reds, browns, creams, blues, greens, and golds – modern styles feature brighter shades of pinks, teals, blues, yellows, and even purples. These color schemes lend themselves well to modern decorating with oriental rugs.
The rug I chose for our living room is charcoal gray with pink, teal, and just a bit of yellow-gold. You’ll find it first on the list of rugs below.
I’ve rounded up some of my favorite colorful rug options, all of which are very affordably priced in the $150-250 price range (based on current pricing at the time of publication). The list below contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.
Affordable Modern Oriental Rugs
This is the rug I used in my living room! It's also available with a beige background, which makes the pinks even more vibrant.
This one is on closeout, so it probably won't be available much longer.
This rug comes in fushia, navy, and teal. While the fushia makes the biggest statement, the navy is a perfect balance between bold and subtle.