How to Colour a Handmade Rug Online: Palette & Pile Explained

Buying · 7 November 2026 · 6 min · Published by Raheem & Son for RS Living

Yes, you can colour a handmade rug online. Pick a design, choose its colours, send the colourway to RS Living, and our designers match it to real dyes by hand before you receive a quote.

Can I colour a rug online, and what happens next?

Yes. In the Palette & Pile studio you choose a design, pick a colour for each part of it from 400 wool and 100 silk shades, and see the rug change as you work. When you are happy, you send the colourway to RS Living. Our designers then match your choices to the nearest real dyes by hand, and the RS Living team sends you a quote. Nothing is made until you have agreed that quote.

Trying colours is free and needs no account. You only need a free RS Living account to save your work, download the tearsheet or send your colourway to us.

How does the Palette & Pile studio work?

You start from one of 118 original hand tufted designs. Each has its own number of colours you can change, shown on its page, and its own shape and level of detail. A design such as Furrow has two colours to choose, so the whole rug is decided by a single pairing. Okapi also has two, but its spots and dots read very differently depending on how far apart you set them.

You click a part of the rug, pick a shade, and the preview updates. You can change your mind as often as you like. Each design also offers a set of sizes suited to its shape, and a custom size is possible; sizes, timing and the total are all confirmed by the RS Living team with your quote.

What are the 400 wool and 100 silk shades?

The library holds 400 wool shades and 100 silk shades, grouped by colour family so you can browse reds, greens, neutrals and the rest in order. Wool is the everyday choice: soft, resilient and warm underfoot. Silk gives a finer sheen that shifts with the light, and it suits pieces that will be looked at more than walked on.

Every shade has a name and a code, and those are what end up on your tearsheet. If you are unsure which fibre suits the room, ask the team before you send anything. We would rather talk it through than have you guess.

Can I upload my own design?

Yes, on the Bring your own design page. Add a clear picture, drawing or logo and the studio simplifies it into flat colours, which you can then recolour in the same wool and silk shades. Your picture stays in your browser until you choose to send it.

It helps to know where the limits are. It works best with bold shapes and clear edges. Complex photographs and gradients will not convert well, because a hand tufted rug is built from areas of solid colour rather than a continuous blend. Please only upload images you have the right to use.

How do your designers match my colours to real yarn?

A screen can only suggest a colour, and no two screens agree. So the colours you see are a guide, and we say so on every page. When your colourway arrives, our designers go through it by hand, matching each choice to the closest dye. It is a person looking at real yarn, not only a conversion done by software.

This is also where the studio's honesty matters. We do not promise that a rug will match your screen exactly. We say that our designers match each shade to the closest dye by hand. If the exact tone matters to a room, read our notes on rug samples and ask the team about a sample of the yarn.

What is a tearsheet, and what do I receive?

The tearsheet is a one page PDF of your design with your chosen colours and their shade names listed. It is handy to keep, to share with a partner or designer, or to hold up beside a sample.

After you send your colourway, the RS Living team replies with a quote. Sizes, timing and the total are confirmed in that quote, and you decide whether to go ahead. We do not publish prices for Palette & Pile designs, because the total depends on the design, the size and the fibre you choose.

How should I choose colours for a room?

Start with what is already in the room: the floor, the largest piece of furniture and the walls. Pick the main colour of the rug first, then let the second colour sit either close to it for a calm look or further away for contrast. With a detailed design, neighbouring colours that are too alike can blur the pattern, so a little distance between them helps.

Look at your choices in daylight and in the evening, and on more than one screen if you can. If a shade matters a great deal, that is the moment to ask about a sample of the yarn rather than rely on the preview alone.

Who is behind the studio?

RS Living is the online shop of Raheem & Son, a family of rug makers working in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, since 1927. Palette & Pile is a way of putting that workshop's dye room in your hands: you make the colour decisions, and the people who make the rug check them.

Rugs ordered this way are hand tufted and made to order, which is also why a single rug in your own colours is possible at all. For how made to order works across the shop, see what made to order really means, and for the difference between constructions, hand knotted vs hand tufted rugs.

Questions

Can I colour a rug online?

Yes. Choose a design in Palette & Pile, pick its colours from the wool and silk library, and send the colourway to RS Living. Our designers match your choices to the nearest real dyes by hand and the team sends you a quote.

Do I need an account to try colours?

No. You only need a free RS Living account to save your work, download the tearsheet or send your colourway to us.

Can I upload my own design or logo?

Yes. Clear pictures, drawings and logos work best. Complex photographs and gradients will not convert well. Please only upload images you have the right to use.

Will my rug match the colours on my screen?

Not exactly. Screens differ, so the colours you see are a guide. Our designers match each shade to the closest dye, and you can ask the team about a sample of the yarn.

Explore

Shop: Shop rugs, All rugs A to Z, Lorna Rug, Lucan Round Rug, Lucia Rug, Lucien Rug.

Part of: Buy a handmade rug

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