How To Keep a Rug in Place on Carpet

I should have titled this post “My Slightly (or not so slightly) Weird and/or Crazy Out of Desperation Experiment on How to Keep a (bleep-ing) Rug to Say In Place on Carpet” though that seemed a little excessive so for now I’ll stick to my neatly summarized one.

Anyhoo, I recently placed a jute area rug beneath the desk in our soon-to-be-complete home office to help define the space and add some natural texture.

Note: I have a new desk chair awaiting refurbishment and the one shown above is just temporary. It’s my great-grandmother’s old kitchen chair and to be honest I’m surprised I haven’t fallen through it yet!

The rug is layered over our carpet, which I thought would be fine in terms of movement given it’s anchored by two heavy cabinets, though between the cabinets where the desk chair sits (and is shuffled in and out daily at Guinness World Record rates) it still creeps uncontrollably on the carpet, causing it to shift and bunch with ease, which not only looks unsightly though, if I’m honest, also kinda makes me twitch.

I trialled a few of the conventional rug-on-carpet solutions to get it to stay put though nothing worked, so out of desperation I finally decided to try something a little more innovative (that is, as mentioned previously, possibly weird and/or crazy).

I purchased a sheet of thin MDF (I contemplated using something softer though decided I needed the rigidity, other alternatives were stiff rubber or thick cardstock though I figured I’d try MDF first), cut it with a jigsaw to fit snugly between the two cabinets and just short of the front edge of the rug, then slipped it underneath, butting it right up against the rear skirting board (so it basically takes up the entire square cavity space).

I had no idea whether this would look strange, feel weird or even work, in fact based on my past failed attempts I was more than prepared for another strike-out, though to my surprise and relief it seemed to do the trick!

Far from looking strange, the MDF panel is actually completely concealed by the dense jute, and whilst there is a subtle hardness where it sits beneath the rug there’s certainly nothing weird about the feel of it at all (no different to having a rug over floorboards or tiles).

In terms of movement, having the MDF panel alone made a huge difference though for some added staying power I also used a few small strips of strategically placed strong adhesive velcro.

Now, not only does the rug stay neatly in place – even with the desk chair being shimmied back and forth twenty million times a minute – though you would never even know the MDF panel was there (and my growing baby bulge is increasingly grateful for the cessation of all my previous stooping and straightening at ground level – hey, it’s a long way down when you’re at 32 weeks gestation!).

Granted, this kind of solution is not really suitable for all rug-on-carpet scenarios though if you have a situation similar to mine it might just be the answer for you!

Oh, and about the home office reveal…I just have one more DIY project to complete then I’ll finally be sharing it – promise! Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when after a six month lead-up it leaves you feeling a little underwhelmed :-)

And oh, just in case you’re wondering, the rug is from Floorspace. It needed to be a pretty specific size and unfortunately I couldn’t find anything ‘off-the-shelf’ though to save on the usually extravagant cost of anything bespoke I arranged to have it custom-made from an old off-cut they already had.