Or add a red pillow

Yes, rug and pillows live their own lives. Use accent pillows for a pop of color from rug or replace existing rug for neutral one to go with beachy style.

Colors to use with red rug.

The rug is incongruous with everything else in the room. Find a rug that has the blue of the pillows and maybe another (accent) color.

The rug is a very nice one. Use it as your color guide. Change out the pillows on the sofa for a red that matches the rug and then some neutral colors that blend with the sofa. Find a red bowl or an accent color bowl for the coffee table. I am guessing that the sheets on your sofa are for protection from animals or children? PS Perhaps you can find a great metal lamp . The shine would give the room some pop. I absolutely would not get rid of the rug!

The rug is very nice, I agree. It’s a keeper!

And your room is very nice, too.

I agree that changing out your table lamp could possibly make a difference, and I think that might really be all you need to do. You could just take it one step at a time, and see what works best for you. For me, the thinking on the lamp - is that your rug is very bold color-wise, plus in an opulent style, and I think you could benefit from a lamp that is more of a statement piece. More heft, and more contrast - and here, as one idea, I brought in some black and earth tones.

Taking it a step further, you could bring in a throw that has some red in it and/or a different bowl. The throw doesn’t have to have this much red - but just to give you the general idea.

Hope some of this helps! :)

I don’t see monochromatic given the rug, but instead see a room that has a bit of an identify crisis. Coastal and the rug are not very complementary, even with changing some accessories.

If you want Coastal, hopefully you can move rug to a bedroom (or sell), using instead a more muted rug and then add deeper toned cushions. Add linen roman blinds, larger art, a basket on floor and a layered coffee table. Compare ideas below to your room and how big picture is important.

If you prefer using your rug, suggest accessorizing with earth tones for more of a boho feel. Will take more experimenting and bring home lots of accessories to test.

I would suggest adding some red/reddish/reddish brown accents - pillows, accessories and artwork. You might also consider adding some window treatments that also have red incorporated. Also consider wood accents. Wood is a good compliment for red. Good luck!

I hate to agree with others, but that gorgeous rug fights the feel of the room. Hopefully, you can use it someplace else and find a softer looking rug that goes with your coastal decor. You can also paint the room a pale, pale blue to make it less white feeling. But the rug is incongruent. Sorry.

If you have an oriental rug in a room you need to decorate around it because it is a focal point. My suggestion is take out the rug and put it in another room with rich colors.

Maureen, is it possible for you to send me links of rug ,etc?
Thank you!

Debbie, have you considered hiring a designer for a few hours? It would be money well spent and I think that you need the personal guidance on this room.

More and larger colorful art. A nice art piece between the two windows.

Don’t have a link to that particular rug, but if you search for distressed rugs, I’m sure you’ll find something similar.

Found the one below and there is a visualizer to be able to see in your room.

https://www.therugcollective.com/products/the-rug-collective-distressed-vintage-cezanne-terracotta-sky-area-rug?epik=dj0yJnU9X2t5c3JRUm5yVHN1bzRkV3dDZHZZY3RzdklvRS1INngmcD0wJm49bGdmNHdGVEtKMVBYLWpvTzJvM2QzUSZ0PUFBQUFBR0lucjFJ

Yes definitely would consider a designer as I have had no luck with getting this myself.
Any one interested please let me know. Thank you

I say hire Maureen. She did a fabulous job offering you two different looks. Bravo Maureen.

The rug is beautiful and generally considered traditional. The rest of the room IS coastal.
The sofa looks like it is covered with white sheets that don’t fit and don’t match the color of the cushions. Surely there are some pale colors in the rug which you can use in a nice color palette: I see several shades of red, some gold, white, black and perhaps a small amount of blue. If you remove the sheets, the sofa will look better unless it is stained (the reason for the sheet wrapping?). Bring in more of the red tones in additional art and a few accessories. I would use the current loose blue-and-white pillows in another room.

Hi Debby-

Your rug is to die for.

You only need to do a little to bring the room up to that marvelous rug's standards.

I would take away the lumbar pillows, and add two pillows that have blue and red, in the primary colors of blue and red, not pastel.

The end table is too low and is unsubstantial to boot.

The person sitting on the sofa would have to uncomfortable reach down to set something on the table. The table top should be within one inch of the height of the sofa arm.

And while you certainly don't want matchy-matchy, things need to be in proportion with each other.

The coffee table overwhelms that little wicker side table.

In truth, the coffee table looks homemade - the top and bottom are fine, but the vertical supports are awkward and unattractive.

You would be better off looking for another end table and coffee table.

Vintage well-made rattan would look marvelous in that room.

Think of the living room furniture from the Golden Girls.

Of course, that stuff even if you could find it would be several thousands of dollars.

But that is the well made stuff you want, not the cheap imported crapola. And not wicker. And not bamboo.

You want vintage McGuire, Ficks-Reed, Paul Frankl, Bielecky Brothers.

Of course it doesn't have to be by those manufacturers, you want something that looks like that, with that sort of quality.

Another thought would be to remove the vertical wood rails, put a slightly darker stain on the top and bottom wood circles, and in place of the verticle wood pieces, use copper piping. If you live near the shore with salty air and the copper piping gets verdigris'd, all the better!

Then you just need an end table of the appropriate height, and the diameter needs to be sufficient too. If you really need a lamp there, the table needs to be large enough to hold a lamp, a drink, and a plate.

If you are going to have a chair next to the sofa on the other side of that end table, the end table needs to be large enough for 2 drinks and 2 little plates.

I would get rid of that large clam shell on the coffee table, it doesn't add anything to the room.

What you can do with that large clam shell is put it in your guest bathroom with sample sizes of interesting beauty products, mini- deodorant and mini-toothpaste and mini-mouthwash and extra tooth brush, etc for whatever your guests forgot or might like to try. That's what I have and my guests love it.

Put your tray on the top of the coffee table with a flowering plant or fresh flowers.

The lamp on your side table is underwhelming.

Do you really need a lamp there? Because you have can lights overhead in the ceiling, so maybe you don't. You can always change the bulbs in the ceiling to get more light if you are going to read when you don't have guests.

If you do need a lamp, wait until you get the right end table. Then the height of the table plus the lamp should be between 58-64". And then pick a lamp that is more substantial. I would not do the blue and white ginger jar lamp. That is such a cliche. If you need to illuminate that corner for the person sitting on that end of the sofa and a person sitting in a chair next to the sofa, I would pick an upright lamp, and if you choose a contemporary style that keeps your room young and fresh.

Unless you find a marvelous genuine vintage torchere, then grab that. They usually go for a few thousand dollars, but sometimes people just don't know what they have. Or throw away something because of a frayed cord or bent plug when you can have that fixed for $25.

You need to choose some artwork that is large. what you have behind the lamp is way too small.

If you are not going to get curtains ( and you certainly don't need to), then you should get three things, one for in between the windows, and one for the right of the windows and one for the left of the windows.

It should start at 6 inches above the top of the sofa and go to the top of the blinds.

It can be an original painting, black and white photography or a print, or modern macrame.

Do you know that many museums let you download free high-resolution versions of their works for free? Then you can take them to a printer and have them cropped, sized and their proportions changed to your liking and if you want you can put them on poster board or plaqued or framed or whatever you like.

For example, you can print Audobon prints.

The above are just a few that would look great in your room and would go well with your rug.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art lets you do that too, and so does the Smithsonian.

There are probably many more.

Many ethnic textiles look marvelous as wall hangings too, such as saree fabric and kimono and obi fabric.

Oh, I should say, if you live by the seashore and keep your windows open, it probably would not be a good idea to display valuable vintage textiles in the open air, as they will rot away from the moisture and salt, etc.

But if they are framed properly, (and the best framers should know what to do,)

you would be ok.

The same with a genuine vintage print, it would get foxing. And watch out for your old photographs, too.

Fortunately, these days there is information on the internet on how to properly and safely frame and display everything.

Just make sure you get the information from the right place, like a museum for example.

Before the internet was invented (yes, I am that old) I spoke to someone at the Smithsonian about archival storage of photographs and textiles. She was very nice and helpful.

Really, people at these places are very nice and willing to share their information, that's often why they go into these fields of public works (as opposed to private enterprise.)

A few examples of how to pull it together (pillows, rugs & wall art):