The practical argument and the aesthetic one agree more often than you would expect in this room.
All-over patterns
The most forgiving choice, and the reason is structural rather than stylistic: a repeating field has no centre for the coffee table to obscure, and a busy mid-toned ground disguises soil and traffic marks.
Traditional Persian and Turkish all-over designs — herati, boteh, Ziegler-style — were made to withstand rooms in use, and they still do. See rug patterns and traditional rugs.
Medallions
Want to be seen. A central medallion under a coffee table is money spent on something nobody will look at.
They work where the floor is visible — furniture around the edges, a large room, an entrance hall. In a conventional seating arrangement they are usually the wrong layout however good the rug.
Modern and minimal
Plain fields show everything
Every footprint, every crush mark, every piece of lint. A minimal pale rug in a room people use daily is a maintenance commitment, not a low-maintenance choice. If the look is what you want, choose texture over flatness and mid-tone over pale.
Textural modern rugs — cut-and-loop, mixed pile heights, subtle tonal variation — hold up far better than flat plain fields while reading just as contemporary. Most are woven with the Tibetan loop technique; see modern rugs.
Bohemian and layered
Layering a kilim or a small worn Persian rug over a large jute base gets the collected look honestly, and it solves the size problem affordably.
Prefer that to overdyed and distressed rugs, which achieve a similar effect by destroying the textile underneath.
What dates fastest
Matching sets. A rug chosen to coordinate with cushions, curtains and a lampshade locks the room to one moment.
Whatever is currently everywhere. Grey plain fields dated quickly; so did overdyed magenta. A rug is a decade-plus purchase and trend-following is expensive at that horizon.
Very high pile. Both the look and the practicality date — see shag rugs.
What does not
Traditional weaving in its own idiom. Restrained texture. Natural fibre with visible character. All three have looked correct in every decade of the last century because none of them was ever a trend.
Choosing against the room
Busy furniture and art — a textural rug in one colour holds the floor without competing.
Plain furniture and walls — this is where a saturated antique carpet is at its best, and where the market currently offers the most value, since traditional designs are out of fashion.
Small room — mid-toned all-over pattern; avoid strong borders, which visually shrink a floor.
Open-plan — two zoned rugs, clearly different from each other so they read as a decision — rug layout rules.
Fibre and construction are decided separately, in best materials.
Common questions
Do traditional rugs work in modern rooms?
Usually better than people expect. A saturated antique carpet against plain walls and simple furniture reads as deliberate. What dates a room is matching everything to the rug — cushions, curtains and lampshades echoing it turns a good carpet into a period set.
What rug style hides wear best?
A mid-toned all-over pattern. There is no focal point for furniture to obscure, the busy field disguises soil and traffic marks, and mid values show neither pale soil nor dark lint.