Do Area Rugs Help Or Harm Your Health?

How you decorate your home affects your well-being. If your interior design is ruined by so much clutter, your mood might do a complete 180-degree turn and drop quickly. That’s why being a homeowner is an all-around job. Because on top of managing its upkeep, you must know how to design your home without causing you any trouble in the long run.

Why Use Area Rugs?

Many households use area rugs on surfaces until they become a common addition. Some even put them on the walls to change things up. Here are some reasons why area rugs work as a decoration while beautifying your flooring.

  1. Protects The Floor

Regardless of its material, flooring can be damaged over time. For homes with extremely high foot traffic, it’s only a matter of time before you see wear and scratches all over your floor. Aside from foot traffic, moving around furniture and heavy equipment can also lead to lasting damage.

Area rugs work as a cover that protects your flooring. Shock-absorbent materials such as cotton or sheepskin absorb any force and movement to keep them from affecting the floor. On top of that, furniture placed on them keeps them stationary to prevent them from moving so much. Once you learn how to protect and preserve them from this article, you can keep protecting your flooring for a long time.

  1. Reduces Noise

Aside from lowering the damage your floor receives, area rugs can also reduce noise. After all, listening to footsteps might be annoying, especially if your flooring is made of wood or laminate. On top of that, they even absorb sound from the air. Area rugs can lower the slight echo in hard-surfaced rooms and provide you with a quiet place, especially if you want to record videos or audio or if you’re studying.  

  1. Boosts Comfort

Walking on hard surfaces without any footwear deals a significant impact on your health. Without any support or cushion for your feet, fatigue and pain could take over the rest of your body, starting from your legs up to your back. What’s more, it’ll only get worse if you exercise any physically exerting actions, like lifting heavy objects. And that’s not yet including how awful it’d be to walk around the house during cold days.

Besides your physique, area rugs also affect the air that you breathe. Thanks to their fibers, they filter out dust and allergen in the air by collecting them all. There’s no doubt that having an area rug will help your air filtering unit boost the air quality inside your home.

  1. Improves Interior Design

Besides their practical uses, area rug manufacturers have all kinds of designs on display. After all, considering they use fabric or fibers, they’ve mastered manipulating the material to let their creativity run free and perfectly apply the designs they have in mind. Furthermore, modern technology allows them to create fresh designs, such as adding photos or prints on the surface.

What Makes Area Rugs Harmful?

Despite their many benefits, area rugs still possess some downsides that can easily harm your health as much as they help improve it. Considering they act as an air filter, continuously absorbing allergens will turn them into a concentrated source of contaminants, polluting the indoor air quality and impacting the residents’ lungs. And because of how well they absorb substances, they can even hold moisture until they evolve into a breeding ground for mold.

To steer clear of that issue, you must schedule a cleaning session for your rugs. Carefully read their instructions to know how to clean them properly, given that some materials require certain techniques. Otherwise, you might end up damaging them. Once you’ve cleaned them properly, the allergens they’ve accumulated will be removed.

However, there’s another issue that can’t be resolved by simply cleaning up your area rug. Manufacturers use all kinds of materials for producing area rugs. Some involve using synthetic materials or toxic chemicals to improve the rugs’ quality. In the end, all they do is release harmful fumes into the air or be absorbed when people come in contact with them. 

Take your time shopping for the right area rug. Be vigilant when reading labels. Look up legitimate area rug manufacturers that use organic or non-toxic materials without involving chemicals during the manufacturing process.

Can You Still Use Area Rugs?

Area rugs are a valuable addition to the house. With how they can level up your comfort and interior design, it’s safe to say they have the best of both worlds. However, if not taken care of properly, they could cause lasting damage to your well-being—the same goes for choosing the wrong materials. That’s why you must be careful when handling area rugs.

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