Curating Rentals that Don’t Clash with Hotel Carpet
Hotel carpet be WILD. We get why… they’re trying to fight tons of foot traffic, camouflage stains, etc… and think of the cost of replacing carpet in rooms of this size! That said, the bold patterns can present a design challenge, often completely overlooked until you get into the space and realize the color palette of your event is completely at odds.
After years of designing for the big hotels in Austin, like the Fairmont, Four Seasons, JW Marriott, Omni Barton Creek, and more, here are our 3 main pillars of advice from our experience helping clients curate rentals that don’t clash with these wild rugs while preserving their event vision.
Work With the Carpet
You don’t have to let the carpet completely control the design, but you can work with it! Take cues from the carpet’s colors and patterns and include them in your design to make things feel cohesive.
Take these two examples from the Fairmont: On the left, you have a particularly challenging pattern because of the strong colors. You can pull out jewel tones from this carpet with pieces like our Syrah Modular Curved Sofa and pair them with darker, moody pieces to coexist with the purples, greens, and black in the carpet. It lends itself to a more dark, moody aesthetic, so stick to black or silver accents to keep that cool-toned theme going.
On the right, is another different but also color-forward pattern. This blue, organic pattern leans a little more warm so you can play with warm woods like our Ciroc Round Dining Tables. You can see in the real event photo above how well our Julep Cocktail Tables and White Julep Barstools work in this room. When designing lounges, keep in mind that accents and neutral-colored pieces pull the beige and brown from the carpet. Let the carpet be loud here and choose neutral pieces that soften up the space!
Neutralize with Rugs
Oh yes, those are FISH on the carpet at The Line Hotel. 🐟 Instead of worrying so much about colors here, the issue can be that this is a heavily-themed carpet. Didn’t sign up for a nautical themed event? That is where the neutral rugs come in. You can distract from the specific design to keep your dream aesthetic. A neutral rug creates a break between the rentals and carpet that gives you a clean slate to do something different with your lounge choices.
For example, our Teddy’s Lounge above isn’t giving “coastal” at all, but because of the neutral boundary between the fish pattern and the rentals, it works!
Be Careful When Mixing Patterns
The Austin Proper‘s ballroom carpet has colors that are easy to work with but it’s a more condensed, BUSY pattern. In situations like this, you must follow the design rule for pattern mixing. You can overlay this it with patterned rugs but make sure you’re selecting ones where the pattern is a different scale/size, like this Lemon Twist Rug pictured under our modular orange sofa. The scale of the pattern is a lot larger than the Proper’s carpet, so it’s a visually pleasing combo. If your rug doesn’t have much difference in pattern scale, you would want to choose something like our Tomatini Rug, where the pattern is discreet and/or monotone.
Putting it All Together
Your best bet might be to combine all of our advice! Take this setup in the JW Marriott ballroom. 1) The colors of the base elements of our Powder Room Lounge are found in the hotel carpet. 2) The scale of the pattern of the rug is much smaller than the one of the hotel carpet. 3) The neutral color creates a clean palette for the lounge allowing us to use even more patterned accents with these Fancy Free Ottomans.
As well as vibing with the carpet, the rest of the pieces really correlate with the design of the room itself. The big, glam star chandelier lends itself to a choice like our gold Prosecco Dining Chairs and accents like the Lemon Drop Side Table. Our Moonshine Curved Bar plays off the warm wood accents in the room. This setup works well with the room, but doesn’t take away your ability to choose rentals with personality.
As a bonus tip, we have some advice for designing audience seating with one one of these big, abstract patterns like in the ballroom at Omni Barton Creek. You’ll probably have rows of identical chairs in front of your stage—break things up with a section of taller seating in the back. Use cocktail tables and bar stools to give your audience seating some dimension and as an opportunity to bring different colors and materials into your design. In the example above, you can see how our light wood Fernet Cocktail Tables and leather Cognac Barstools bring some life into the room.
While we may never be able to control a hotel’s design choices, we CAN help make it easier on Austin event professionals to pick furnishings that will play nicely. We absolutely recommend taking the carpet into consideration when you’re designing for an event—don’t forget it’s there, but don’t let it kill your vibe. If you’re planning an Austin event from another location and can’t make it to one of these hotels for a site visit, you can rest easy knowing our sales designers have seen these carpets in person and can give their expert recommendations!
Cover photo – April Mae Creative
