A little extra padding

Since I own about a million rugs, I have also bought a lot of rug pads.  A rug pad is so important when laying rugs over hardwood floors!  Without them, the backing of your rug can really rub the finish off your floors.  Not to mention pad-less rugs can create a slippery situation.  It's also important to buy a tight-weave rubber (or woven) pad, not the rubber ones with the large grid pattern. The large-weave ones can leave a checkboard in your floor over time, which actually happened to my mom.  She was not amused when she removed the rug pad and saw a nice pattern on her wood floor!  There are a lot of pads that work well.  Here is a sampling of the many different rug pads in our house:

And this is an example of a pad I wouldn't trust over hardwoods (sadly, from my beloved Overstock):

The 'recycled' rug pads like this one from Pottery Barn are great, but 8x10's go for around $100 at PB! 

I get all my rug pads at TJ Maxx, I always buy the rubber ones because they are softer and springier than the recycled mat-style ones.  Oh, and an 8x10 pad is $20 at TJ.  Yes, ma'am!   

Funny story:  Before I was a savvy homeowner, I actually tried to duct-tape a bathroom rug to the linoleum to stop it from sliding.  It didn't have the rubber backing, and we would skate across the floor whenever we had to pee.  Shaun thought I was the biggest nerd for trying to rig it with tape, and I had to go buy a rubber pad the next day.  Oh, the silly things I've done in the past!