Pugs on a Rug

 Every time I drive, walk, or ride my bike down an alley, I feel a little tingle of anticipation. Will I find a castoff treasure, or just a bunch of garbage cans filled with trash?

This week, I found a real prize:

(The pugs give you a good sense of the rug's size.)

An area rug, rolled up and set next to the garbage cans. I unrolled it to find that it's 100% wool, from Pottery Barn, 5 feet by 7 feet, in a glorious, over-the-top design and color scheme.

Pao Pao (center, above) may eat cigarette butts and worse, but when I say, "Sit! Stay!," he is ALL business. Good dog!

So I rolled it up and took it home. The rug is in terrific condition:

All it needs is a visit to the cleaner's, and then it will be like new. And even though cleaning a rug this size might run $60-$70 here in Los Angeles, look at the original price:

What a deal! I'm going to give it to Lovely Daughters #1 and #2, to replace a rather mannish, black-and-tan geometric one that they currently have in their living room. (It's really The Boy's rug, just on loan to them.) The newfound rug will play nicely with their deeply-colored couch:

A rug this design-intensive might not work in rooms with a lot of pattern. But the LDs' living room is a study in solids--solid light gray walls, solid-colored couches, solid-color leather side chair. So, the floral rug will look great there.

Opposite the curvy, antique-looking couch (pictured above) is a big, modern, tan-colored one from West Elm that their housemate brought with her. It looks a lot like this one:

Photo: West Elm

The two couches look terrific across from each other, and the tan background in the back of the "found" rug is the same shade as the modern sectional.

The new rug will also play nicely with their dining-room chairs. You may have read last August that I found these cuties, made for IKEA, at my local Goodwill and snapped them up for $10 each.:

When he sees this post, The Hubby is going to ask, "Didn't you declare that you were through picking up stuff by the side of the road for the girls?" Well, yeah. I did.

But when the opportunity to swap out one okay thing for one fabulous thing comes along, I'm all over it.

Like a pug on a rug.