We recently built a new kitchen on to our house and are now in the process of taking the very small area that was our old kitchen and incorporating it into the old dining area. We are still in demo mode, but I like to be sure of the direction we are going ahead of time. New windows flooring etc. The finished area will be about 12X26 and will also be the walk through to get to the new kitchen. We have 2 dining room sets which in the past when expanded for more seating for Christmas and special occasions used to run in to the old kitchen area which will be wonderful not to have happen anymore when we need to seat 18 for dinner.

To get to my question, on Sunday I went to an area rug retailer and spoke to the store manger which says he was a designer. He was very helpful in color tones and choices as well as sizes he recommended. He was very adamant about buying the more expensive "hand made" one of a kind area rugs over the "machine made" area rug and I clearly get that as the prices were much higher and it was his job to sell top of the line. If we were to get 2 rugs, I figure it would be over $9,000.00. That is crazy for us price wise after the expense we just took on with the new kitchen and is clearly beyond our budget for the dining room. We are normal people and although both have good paying jobs, I can not justify that much for rugs on top of paying for the hard wood flooring surface.

Shoot, I need to get to the point. His advise was that we should not have 2 rugs alike under the 2 dining room sets as it will make it look like a restaurant. That we should have 2 different rugs that compliment each other with maybe one or two of the colors in the rugs. My question is ... is he right or just trying to convince me into the one of a kind hand made rugs where he can not sell me a matching set like the machine made rugs?

He also said not to put a round rug under a round table, is that right? One table is oblong and one is round when neither have leaves in them. At this point, I am leaning to one rug about 8X11 under our oblong table and not putting a rug under the round table.

I would appreciate any advice and thank you for any responses. I want the room to feel warm and plan on the round table to be a place to play cards and games with friends and family when done and when we are not hosting family Christmas dinner.