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Sizing Guides · 4 min read

Furniture Legs and Pad Coverage

Where the legs land decides whether the rug divots.

Short answer

Furniture Legs and Pad Coverage

The pad should extend as far as the rug does, which is what ordering to the rug's finished dimensions accomplishes. Furniture legs on the rug are then supported by pad underneath, which prevents the permanent divots you get when legs press unpadded rug into a hard floor.

What causes divots?

Point load. A sofa leg concentrates several hundred pounds onto a couple of square inches. With pad underneath, that load spreads. Without it, the pile crushes against the floor and does not come back.

Does that argue for a bigger pad?

It argues for a correctly sized one. The pad should reach to about an inch inside the rug's edge — far enough that legs anywhere on the rug are supported, close enough that no pad shows.

What if legs sit right at the rug's edge?

Then do not rip more strips than the fit requires. Every strip you remove pulls support back from exactly the zone where furniture tends to sit.

Published 2026-06-09. Last updated 2026-08-01.

Answers

Related questions

Does the pad need to reach under the furniture legs?

The pad should extend as far as the rug does, which is what cutting to the rug's dimensions accomplishes. Furniture legs sitting on the rug are then supported by pad, which prevents the divots you get when legs land on unpadded rug.

How much smaller than the rug should a rug pad be?

The standard rule is roughly one inch smaller than the rug on each side, so the pad disappears under the rug's edge. Order at your rug's finished dimensions and the pad is cut to that convention automatically.

Will the pad compress and flatten over time?

Densified felt holds its loft far longer than fiber-and-rubber composites, which collapse under furniture load. Expect the pad to outlast several rug rotations in a residential setting.

What pad should go under an antique or hand-knotted rug?

A dense felt pad cut to the rug's exact size. Antique foundations are brittle, and an undersized pad concentrates load at the unsupported edge, which is where old rugs fail first.

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