A Work in Progress

I like to take my time with design decisions (errr, and my blog posting, apparently!) Maybe it's my fear of commitment, or of making the wrong choice, and hating what I end up with. Regardless of my excuse, what it means is that despite living in my current apartment for a number of years, I am still working on some of the very basic decorating decisions. Part of my problem is that, as a renter, I'm limited in certain changes I can make to my home.

Witness one of my main design challenges that I have the "pleasure" of working with - orange wool berber carpet in my dining room, a relic of the groovy 70's that my landlady is unwilling to part with:


I've certainly had visions of ripping it out, but I try to be a respectful tenant, so I'm left with the option of working with it (or "around" it, or "over" it, as the case may be). As you can see in the picture above, the table badly needs something to anchor it in the large space. As an experiment, I had Sir Em help me to drag an IKEA rug that currently occupies my bedroom into place under the table, which looked like this:


I like that the white/cream color doesn't clash with the existing orange, but I'm not a huge fan of the shaggy look in the dining room (plus, I want to keep that rug in my bedroom). Also, this rug is only 5 x 8, and I think the space could use something more on the order of 8 x 10.

So, I set out on the hunt for something that fit the bill, and found this which I think would work great, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take the $500 plunge just yet. In the meantime, IKEA came through again with a great $40 temporary option until I've made up my mind:



For $40, I'm pretty pleased with this current look, but think it could be bigger, and unfortunately IKEA doesn't make this inexpensive option in a larger size.
What say you? Worth another $500 to upgrade to the larger version? Have I gone in the completely wrong direction here? Suggestions?