Bare feet on a winter morning, the kettle on downstairs, and the first thing you step on is the yellow Gabbeh Uni runner beside the bed. Yellow wakes a room up.

A runner like this has more than one home. It fits a hallway, a landing or the strip of floor in front of a kitchen worktop, and it sits just as well along the side of a bed. Its low pile lies flat wherever you put it.

Each wool fibre is naturally crimped, and those tiny bends trap air, which partly explains why the yellow runner feels springy rather than hard. A 100% wool pile sits on a wool backing, woven by hand in India.

Hand-woven pieces can come out a little longer or shorter than listed, so read our sizing tips before you measure the hallway. With its pure wool pile, the yellow runner counts among our wool rugs as much as among our runner rugs, and it is happy over underfloor heating.

The care guide suggests beating the yellow runner from the back now and then and airing it. Turn it round every so often to share out sunlight and footsteps. Before laying it on a smooth hallway floor, slip an underlay a little smaller than the runner beneath it.