Dark blue floor tile adds high-quality underfoot, but it might be somewhat tough on your toes. Carpet, in the shape of an area rug which leaves lots of the standout ground on viewpoint, will soften the texture and look of the dark tile. There are a range of powerful color choices for rug over blue tile, based on the fashion of your decor and the normal activity in the room.
These Hallowed Halls
Large blue slate tile in a hall, especially in the entryway of your home, is almost too beautiful to cover. But comfort and practicality may determine otherwise. A tile entryway gains from a carpet in the door to catch outdoor dirt before making its way to the rest of the home. On rainy days, the door rug helps prevent slipping on a wet stone floor. And a long runner in the door down the hall pulls together different wall paints at the rooms which open off the hall, and muffles the noise of frequent footfalls. Consider a rough tobacco-colored coconut-fiber rug in the door for a nonskid soil walk-off. The warm brown offsets the cooler slate and also adapts to many decor styles. A oriental runner at a slate tile hall picks up the rich historical feel of the flooring and neutral textured walls. Dominant browns and purples in the rug pattern are regal; softer jades and apricots have a more Mediterranean feel.
Palette for Penny Tile
Plunk a confetti-colored, somewhat fluffy area rug in front of the sink on your dark-blue penny-tiled bathroom. The glowing, multicolored rug enhances the feeling of vitality in the room and lets you choose your palette of colors for towels, shower curtain and accessories. Vivid splashes of turquoise, hot pink, lipstick red, lime, tangerine and grape with lots of white are a visually expansive alternative for a small bathroom. Deeper combined colors — barn red, teal, rust, gold, olive and indigo — knotted tightly together are an extreme island of color against the blue tile floor in a generously proportioned bath.
Southern Comfort
In tropical and subtropical climates, cool tile floors throughout the home are typical, even in bedrooms. If your master suite includes dark blue tile floors, don’t default to an all-blue palette, and do soften the texture of the room with your choice of carpet. Look for a low-pile however luxe rug in a cream and salmon pattern to complement a room using carved wood furnishings, antique white walls and gleaming pale salmon and blue tattersall cotton drapes. More masculine, but still balanced, is a mottled and decorated flat-pile blue and white rug — almost a drift of clouds and sky across the ground that reflects white walls to brighten dark wood or ebony veneer furnishings. A child’s bedroom becomes a vibrant riot of primary colors with deep blue floors, red and white bedding, and area rugs in giant banana-yellow, cream and toast color blocks.
Fine Dining
A contemporary dining room with dark blue tile floors, seagull-white walls and a slab of glass above brushed steel “sawhorse” table legs requires a completely contemporary carpet to keep the room from feeling overly stark. Cover the ground with an abstract design that swirls pewter, navy and also the slightly grayed white of the walls with a sign of chartreuse or scarlet. Leave a wide border of the blue tile visible across the room, and keep the remaining furnishings spare — a glossy lacquered red cabinet or very low chartreuse sideboard echo the accents in the rug. A wooden bowl of red or green apples adds a bit of nature to the austere decor in the room.
