Whether you're decorating your home for the first time or the fiftieth time, you probably understand the challenge that goes with it. Once you're finished it looks nice but there always seems to be something missing, or the balance just doesn't seem right. This is where your flooring comes in. When you're decorating you don't often think about the flooring in your home because it's permanent and you're focusing on the things that can be easily moved and easily changed. But the truth is, the look and feel of your flooring can be changed more easily than your couches, throw pillows and curtains. All you have to do is add a decorative rug. There are two major ways to change the look of your flooring: downplay and highlight.

When I moved into my first apartment during college, I was met with a huge and disturbing challenge: an apartment filled with purple, yes purple commercial carpet. And we're not talking about a sultry shade of purple area rug that feels romantic and makes you feel at home. It was more a shade of purple that makes you think of body organs.

Lucky for me there was a rug shop down the street that specialized in helping people learn how to decorate with rugs. I used a large, room size Persian style rug in deep maroons, blacks, creams and reds to cover the greater portion of the living room area. I used a similar rug in browns, tans, blacks and maroons to fill the major open space of the bedroom. Plus, they were both made of thick, hand tufted wool pile so I didn't have to worry about them shedding, falling apart, fading or getting trampled to death.

The great thing about large rugs is that they have the ability to hide whatever is going wrong on the floor beneath them.

The most important thing to remember about hiding the floor is that you do have to select a larger rug. Choose a rug that is proportionate to the size of the room and don't forget to select a beautiful vibrant pattern that will take and keep attention away from what you're trying to hide.

If you're lucky enough to live in a home with beautiful flooring-like cherrywood floors or gorgeous, plush carpet, you can use rugs to highlight the excellent selection you've made.

Use a soft, single hued rug to enhance a deep colored wood or carpeted floor. The tone on tone pairing will bring out the natural beauty of the flooring and give it an even greater appeal. You can also use rugs with a simple pattern or natural tones-like browns, greys, etc.-to give your room a little more life while still highlighting the beautiful flooring. Remember, it isn't hard to downplay an ugly floor or highlight a beautiful floor to create balance in your home decorating. It's only a matter of proportion and color pairing.