From white to gold back to white- "Tea Stained" fringes

When you hear the word "Antique" you know that the item in question is old, but what about just making items look old?

It is done all the time with furniture finishes and clothing and it is also done with area rugs too. It is very easy to make a rug look old and yellowed, but it can be easy to remove with improper cleaning. Back in Sept of 2008 I wrote about a lady who's rug changed from a golden colour to a off white after she had used a carpet shampooer on it. This was because her rug had been "tea washed" to make it look antiqued and when she added warm water and shampoo it removed the tea wash.

Tea wash is done by using any of the following actual tea, herbs, synthetic or chemical wash and is applied to the rug after it has been made. A tea wash can also be applied to the fringes as well.This is done because a white fringe doesn't look good on a golden coloured rug.

The fringes are tea stained after the rug is made. Here is a little video about tea stained fringes.

It doesn't make a difference whether the rug is wool or synthetic, machine woven or hand knotted. If the manufacturer wants a golden fringe they will dye them after a rug is made. Here is another blog post about tea stained fringes on a wool Dhurrie/flatweave rug.

Now not all golden fringes are tea stained. Some are actual dyed cotton that remains golden colour the life of the rug, minus any spills and dirt. It is always best to push back the last row of the rug fibers to see if the fringes are a different colour. Rugs that do have tea stained fringes are not a bad rug to buy, just as long as you are aware that the fringes may faded back to white.

Here is to many beloved tea stained rugs, RugloverMary.

Red Hot Red Wine

My days can seem a bit monotone some days, I come to work, check e-mails, call clients to let them know their rugs are ready for pick up, write a blog or do other online work. It is the variety of phone calls, area rugs and clients that make each day just that much more interesting.

Take today, Sat May 28, at 8am on the dot the phone rings, I think wow we just opened they must have been waiting for the time to be 8am to call.

I was wrong, he needed to know when he could bring in his rug for cleaning today and it was a fluke on the timing.

The guy on the phone said that he woke up this morning to a red wine spill and dog urine on his rug. Not the best things to wake up to, especially when you did not cause either of them to happen.

The arrows show where the red wine mostly is and the darker areas are where the rug is wet.

He said that he took his rug out on the patio and tented it over two chairs and poured a very diluted mix of liquid laundry soap and warm water through the rug to get the wine out.

Not the best recommended red wine treatment. The water is fine, but it should have been cold not warm in case the dye was not stable and the laundry soap if not rinsed completely out would leave a residue and attract dirt.

Blotting the spot with a dry white cotton towel, pouring table salt or dry oats on the spill works better. If you own a wet vac and the spill is wet this works best. When a wet spill or accident occurs you need to get it off the rug. When you scrub or add more moisture to the spill you are pushing the original spill deeper into the fibers making it a more permanent stain.

He just brought the rug in to our office for cleaning and it is an 8x10 wool Chobi rug. It is a beautiful rug that his boss bought in Istanbul and that he just recently inherited from said boss. The wine stain is pretty big and is all the way through the rug. The people who spilled the wine had tried to clean it up themselves and ended up spreading it more. The couple were getting amorous and the wine glass got knocked over. Oops kind of a major mood killer.

I am confident that Luv-A-Rug can remove most of the wine stain. There may still be some pile distortion from the scrubbing done, but that will look like a shadow on the rug.

I couldn't help but smile as the two guys were talking about how the wine spill happened. What a horrible mood breaker- spilling wine on your buddies rug. Wine spills happen no matter how careful you are or how little wine is in the glass.

The urine came from the rug owners girlfriends little Chihuahua. I guess he felt that since the rug already had a spill on it he would just add to it.  The urine was recent and it got soaked up quickly and is the least of the rug owners worries. having the rug look new again is his main concern. He did a good thing in keeping the area damp, this helps the wine not completely set into the fibers and bringing in the rug right away for cleaning.

When you have a wet spill happen on your rug, whether it be wine, urine or other liquids, the best thing to do is not panic and grab the nearest spot remover, but to use a white towel and soak up what you can and then take another white towel get it damp and keep the spill moist until you can get it professionally taken care of.

On Vancouver Island and Victoria, BC you can call Luv-A-Rug at 250-590-6210/ 1-800-886-2802 and we can arrange pick up of your rug or you can bring it to us at 445 Beta St, off Alpha St.

Here is to many sober rugs, RugloverMary

ALERT!!! MOTHS ARE ATTACKING VICTORIA'S WOOL RUGS

Just because you aren't using your rug doesn't mean that something isn't. When you roll up your rug and store it away without cleaning it, even for a short time, clothes moth can make it their home.

Clothes moth like the climate in Victoria, BC and have done a lot of damage to many wool rugs. Clothes moths are very small, about an half an inch long, and are a golden colour, but it is their larvae that eats the wool on your rugs and clothing. After the egg hatches into a very tiny worm like larvae they immediately start eating your wool rug and it doesn't take long for them to do a lot of damage.

On May 12, 2011 Luv-A-Rug received 3 phones in a row about moths that have eaten area rugs. The first call came from Duncan, BC about many rugs that had moth damage to them. The rugs were cleaned then rolled up and store in the same room that their pet Parrots slept in. The owner was wondering how the clean rugs got infested since the rugs were not used.

The small feathers and bird droppings would have attracted the moths and then they would have moved onto the rugs for a more undisturbed food source. That is why wrapping your rugs properly after cleaning is so important. Even though the rugs were cleaned if they aren't wrapped up, NEVER IN PLASTIC, they can collect the organic dust from humans and pets in the air and moths will move in on your wool rugs.

Out of sight is not the best when it comes to your wool rugs. It may seem like an hassle or and added expense to get your rugs cleaned, but what is cheaper; getting your rugs cleaned or having to deal with a moth infestation or worse having to replace the rug?

The second call came from a storage facility here in Victoria that had a client who stored a very large rug in one of their units for under a year. The rug was around 15x20 feet and stored standing on one end and when they took it out of the storage unit one end had a lot of moth damage. Chances are that a rug that size had moths present on the rug before storing and it was not cleaned or wrapped prior to storing. The owners of the rug decided to toss the rug and the owners of the storage place called up and wanted to know how much to clean and repair it.

The third call was from a lovely retired lady who lives in Cordova Bay here in Victoria. She had a flood in her home and her British Indian rug got wet, so the rug was rolled up and put away while the flood damage was fixed to the rest of the floor. When she went to put the rug back she discovered that moths had damaged one end of it.

She called to get us to take a look at it, she had done a Google search for moth damage, to see if it could be trimmed back and re edged. The boss is going to go take a look at it on Saturday when he does free pick up and delivery. I can tell you without looking at the rug that we can save her rug and make it usable again.

This rug is a 9x12.8 wool British India (Aubusson)and we are cutting both ends of the rug back to the same point of the pattern to make it symmetrical and serging the ends.

The rug got flooded and had a piece of furniture on it, so along with sever moth damage there is the rust stains as well.



There is also a twist to this story, the owners are moving into a small place and having to trim back the rug to a smaller size means that they can use the rug in their new dining room. It just goes to show that not all rug disasters end with the rug getting thrown out.

Now I bet you are thinking that we always say we can fix any rug no matter what shape it is in, but you would be incorrect. The staff at Luv-A-Rug know how the different types of area rugs are made and the cleaning concerns for each rug and stain.When you have us clean your rug we let you know if it is worth cleaning and what the cleaning results will be.

Before you throw away your old, really dirty, or damaged area rug bring it to us or get us to pick it up first. If you like your rug we will do our best to save it and make it lovable for you.

Here's to less rugs in the landfill, RugloverMary.

Do You Send Thank You Cards?

An Appreciative Client

I don't know about you, but I am really bad about sending thank you cards and not just for the big things. In our technology driven  lives it is easy to over look the small things. When someone gives us great service we forget to let the person know some of the time.

I find it kinda sad that getting great, let alone good, service is an exception and not the norm. When we do find a person or business that gives great service we don't usually thank them for it. Since they give good service they should just know that we appreciate and then we tell our friends and family about it and that is it.

At Luv-A-Rug we do make people happy with our cleaning results all the time and our clients thank us for our good work and service, but some clients go beyond just telling us. This was waiting for us this morning at our office:

The story behind this thank you card is:

This rug was bought at an estate sale and the couple didn't get to see all of the rug before purchasing it. The rug had a musty smell to it from being rolled up in a basement. Luckily though there wasn't any new damage on it, just missing fibers from years past.

The new owners spent a couple of days literally beating the rug trying to get all the dust and dirt out of the rug. The rug was 8x10 wool rug, so trying to beat the rug was a huge job, especially since the wife is expecting their third child. They called Luv-A-Rug to find out about cleaning cost and what they could do to make their rug clean and fresh.

We discussed all their options:

1. Have us do our deep cleaning
2. Have us do our rugbadgering service only
3. Have them rent our dry carpet cleaning system (Host Sponges)

Since it was hard for me to know exactly what kind of rug they had over the phone, it was not easy to give an exact price for cleaning or rugbadgering. They brought it to our office on Wilkinson Rd. and I identified it as a machine made Belgium wool rug.

They had decided to get us to badger the rug and then they would use the dry carpet cleaning Host sponges to freshen it up. Partly because of the cost and partly because they wanted it in a few days due to the soon to arrive baby.

The wife came and picked up the rug and I had some good news for her. Shane, our rug cleaners, had given her rug an initial cleaning. He didn't see that it was for badgering only until after he had started cleaning it. She was very happy that her rug got an accidental cleaning.

Her rug really needed to be professionally cleaned anyway. With a good cleaning it is healthier, brighter and softer for her family. She thanked us for our accident and said she was going to recommend us to any one who needed area rug cleaning. It was very nice to receive the thank you card from the family, especially since her little ones helped decorate it.

A card is a small piece of paper, but it delivers a lot of happiness. We all need to celebrate the little things in life and let people know that we appreciate what they do because we only this small window of life to do everything we can. All it takes to brighten someone's day is a smile, a thank you, or a small card.

So thank you for all the small things you do, RugloverMary and thanks for reading my blog.

Live Moth Larva, cute but dangerous

The elusive wool eating moth larva are shy little guys and it is hard to see them at work, but I have found them damaging a wool area rug. This rug was rolled up in a room that was used regularly and everyday dust and dirt made it a perfect home for moths.


They are hard to see up close with the camera because the largest one was no more that 1/4 of an inch long. There were more moth larva on this 3x5 foot rug, but as soon as I tried to get a closer look they disappeared into the fibers. These little guys were not that old, a few days at the most. They had not eaten enough wool yet to make any serious damage, but it wouldn't have taken much longer for them to do damage.

When you are not using your rugs get them cleaned before storing them, even if you are leaving them rolled up in a spare room. Moths don't care which room you put them in or if it is only for a month. They want a food supply for their larva to eat when they hatch.

After you get your rug cleaned if it is not wrapped properly for storage the rug can still become victim of moths. If your rug can get dust and dirt on it from the air it can make a good home for moths eventually. NEVER WRAP AREA RUGS IN PLASTIC FOR STORAGE! Plastic traps in moisture which causes many other problems to your rug whether it is wool or synthetic. It is best to use Tyvek, this is what they use to wrap houses in as a moisture barrier. Tyvek is breathable, but doesn't let moisture in making it ideal for storing area rugs in.

If you suspect your rugs have a moth issue call Luv-A-Rug a 250-590-6210/1-800-886-2802 or bring your rugs to 445 Beta St, off Alpha St.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary, protecting your rugs from moths.

Pet urine and your area rugs...not a match made in heaven

This is my adorable Texas, who as cute as he is has forgotten to wake me up in the middle of the night when he has had to go outside. So what can we do to protect our rugs from midnight accidents?

It seems that our pets enjoy our rugs just as much as we do, but sometimes in a different way than we would prefer. They like to use some rugs as an indoor bathroom. Not the best use of our rugs that is for sure.

I have recently had an article about Pet Urine and area rugs published on the site Ezine Articles.

Here at Luv-A-Rug, we receive a lot of area rugs for cleaning because of pet accidents from mild to sever. No rug should ever get to the sever point. Pet urine damages your rugs. As soon as you notice that your rug has been peed on get it cleaned. The longer you wait the harder it is to get all the urine smell out, especially on wool and shag rugs. When you are puppy training try to not have any rugs on your floors. Puppies will find your rugs very convenient and the more they use your rug the more they know to always use your rugs.

The best way to not have your rugs used as a bathroom is to deter pets from your rugs right from the start. Sprinkling pepper, either white, black when you first lay your rugs down works as a good deterrent. Remember that nothing is full proof, but if you have pepper in your rugs for the first few days and your pet inhales it, they are not going to like it.

Dogs have been known to not pee or vomit on rugs that they use as a place to sleep. They don't want to lay on a dirty rug either, cats don't seem to have that same sense. It is good to have a nice soft warm blanket or rug just for your dogs to use and keep them away from your nice area rugs.

Luv-A-Rug has safe, effective and in most cases guaranteed pet urine and odour removal methods. Bring your smelly, stinky rugs to us for a no obligation quote on cleaning and pet urine removal. We are located at 445 Beta St off Alpha St.

Have you tested and had success keeping your dogs from using your rugs as a bathroom or napkin?

Do you agree/disagree with what I wrote?

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary and pet lover.

No Area Rug is too small

Luv-A-Rug cleaners in Victoria  has another small area rug for cleaning and repair.
It is a bit larger than our last small rug from Yugoslavia, that little rug was 8"by 15".
This Pakistan woven bokhara (bo-car-ah) area rug and it is 12" by 12".

The ends are fraying which can often happen with bokhara rug.

Sometimes when they hand weave Pakistan rugs they do a few per loom and cut them apart. This leaves the sides of the rug raw, for lack of the a better word, and then they wrap around the edging.

The downside of that is the cut edge isn't strong enough to support the wrapped fiber and it eventually pulls away from the rug, exposing the raw cut edge.

We can fix the side pulling away in three ways:

We can cut it off and do a machine overcast stitch, which is like the edge already on the rug only done in a synthetic fiber.




We can also do a binding as well.

Which edging you choose depends on the rug and your investment budget for the rug.




And thirdly we can do a hand repair. Which is what we did one this little rug.

We recommended a hand repair on this rug because the machine repair would have stood out too much.




The overcasting stitch would have been too thick for such a small rug to blend in and not scream 'Hey look I was repaired'.

The client was very happy with the way the rug looks after repair.

He bought the Bokhara rug in England and was intrigued by the writing in the red strip. He thought it said something about the rug or the weaver or something inspirational.

He was told that it says: "Made of the Finest Quality for Western Market."

Makes you wonder what other fascinating messages are written on area rugs and if the Chinese and Japanese symbols people get tattooed really say what we are told they mean.

Knowing what the rug said only made it more special and now with it repaired it will last for many more years.

If your rugs are in need of repairs bring them in to Luv-A-Rug at 445 Beta St, off Alpha St. We will give you your options for repairs along with a quote. We can do a machine repair or authentic hand repairs. Here are a few of the rugs we have repaired.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary, your local Victoria BC, area rug cleaning and repair expert

Pets+Pepper+Rugs=Happy Home

A good way to deter pets from having accidents on your precious rugs

You finally found the perfect area rug, it is everything you needed for your home. You proudly take your rug home and put it in place. As you are sitting there chatting with your mom about what a great area rug you found, cute adorable Rover walks over to the rug and lifts his leg.

You are in shock at what you just saw happen.  You jump up and quickly clean up the accident.

It can happen to the best trained pet. When they discover a new item in their house, they have to mark it as theirs. If this went unnoticed your pet could start using your precious rug as a bathroom, thus possibly ruining your rug and your floor underneath.

Thankfully, there is a way deter pets from your rug as soon as you put it on the floor and that is Pepper.

I know sounds a bit weird, but after your pet sniffs the pepper they will avoid that area. You don't need to use a lot, nor do you usually need to put it all over the rug. Sprinkling it just around the edges usually works. One application of pepper should be enough to keep pets away from the rug.

As long as the pepper doesn't get wet it won't stain your rug and it is easily vacuumed up. Pepper can also be sprinkled any where you need to deter pets. 

For your cats favorite chair to scratch, take some clear packing tape, make a loop with the tape with the sticky side facing out, stick the tape to the area they scratch at and sprinkle pepper to the side facing out. 

In rare cases your pet may not be detracted by the pepper, but it isn't very often that this would happen. Pepper doesn't feel very nice when it is inhaled. 

When using pepper, either white or black, make sure the area is kept dry, so that no staining occurs and vacuum it up after a couple of days so it doesn't attract other unwanted pests.

If you have other methods of keeping pets from bad behavior please share them. It is a common problem that may pet owners are faced with. It is frustrating when our precious items get destroyed by our beloved pets. Any suggestions you have are greatly appreciated.

If you do discover that your rug has been used as an indoor bathroom, Luv-A-Rug has clean, safe and effective ways of removing pet urine and odour from most area rugs. Bring your rug to 445 Beta St, off

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary, your Victoria and Vancouver Island BC Canada,  rug cleaning expert! 

DIY Cleaning tips-Are They From a Professional?

A couple times a week I search other blogs about area rug cleaning. The most popular usually are the Do-It-Yourself (DIY)/Green Cleaning/Money Saving blogs.

Nothing wrong with trying to save money and keeping your house chemical free, but where is the advice coming from?

The blogs about DIY rug cleaning are mostly by every day people and not always by professional area rug cleaners.

One of the most important things missing from a lot of these blog posts is what kind of rug/carpet they cleaned. They usually don't say and that is where problems can arise.

Cleaning a synthetic area rug is much easier than a wool area rug. Synthetic rugs are mostly made from Olefin or Polypropylene (types of plastics). They are a great rug to have around small children, pets and in entry ways. They don't absorb spills and last a long time.

When spills or pet accidents happen on a synthetic rug, it is the cotton and jute foundation that absorbs the liquid and smells not the actual rug fibers.

Most cleaners and spot removers are made for synthetic carpets and area rugs, not for wool. They are too strong to use on Wool area rugs. A lot of the spot removers were made when carpet was the most used floor covering. Now hardwood/tile are the most used flooring.

Using the wrong spot removers on a wool area rug can ruin your rug. I use the analogy that wool area rugs are just like the hair on our heads. It is the hair of a sheep, it has cuticles and grows just like our hair and is sensitive to a lot of chemicals. We don't use harsh chemicals or strong shampoos on our hair, why use them on our wool rugs? The results are similar. Use bleach on a wool rug and the wool lightens or dissolves, same as our hair.

Since you cannot be sure of what kind of rug they are talking it about it is like playing Russian Roulette with your cleaning results.

There are safe spot removers for wool. Water is your safest spot remover. A damp White Cotton towel can get rid of a lot of every day spills.

White Vinegar and water is good for fresh, wet pet accidents. Once a pet urine has dried it is pretty much a permanent yellow stain, on wool, cotton, jute and sometimes synthetic.

For red wine put a White Cotton towel on the spill and stand on it. Keep stepping on the towel until either the towel is saturated or you are not getting any more wine off the rug. If you are still seeing wine come up, change to a new towel and keep stepping around the spill.

Club soda, water, salt, dry oatmeal also work at helping remove red wine. The salt and oatmeal absorb the wine, also works for any wet spills.

If you can still see the wine spill, wet a White Cotton towel until it is damp, and keep the spill moist and get it to your rug cleaners as soon as you can. Keeping the spill wet helps the wine not set and stain your rug.

Things to Never use on a Wool area rug are Baking Soda, and any other spot treaters that do not have a Wool safe symbol or say safe for wool. Always do a test spot no matter what you use for spot treatments. Every area rug is different and will react differently even to the same type of spill.

Out of all the stain, cleaning and spot removal advice out there the best things are a White Cotton towel, water, salt, and your professional area rug cleaners.

In a perfect world spills would never happen, in our world they happen every day. Drop by Luv-A-Rug to get your free bottle of our own spot remover. 445 Beta St, (off Alpha St) Victoria, BC 250-590-6210

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary, Your Victoria BC area rug cleaning expert!

A Unique Silk Hunting Area Rug

Here is a video of a Silk area rug with an animal hunting scene. I find it interesting that the pattern is a mirror imaged on the rug. They used a small pattern 4 times to make this rug. Saves on having to draw some many different animals.



It is not uncommon for a rug artist to only draw a small portion of the rug. If the pattern is being repeated throughout the rug they don't need to draw out the whole rug. Just like in using blue prints for building 30 houses. When the houses are all the same you do not need 30 sets of the same drawings.

To be an area rug designer you must go to school for 18 months and learn everything about rug weaving and the history of what the different patterns and colours mean. Plus you must first be a very good artist to apply for the course.

In India it is mostly women learning rug design to supplement their husbands income. Rug designers do not get paid much. If my memory is correct it is around 3600 a year.

The good thing is if your design is really good it is used many times for years. the down side the designers only get paid once for their design, not every time it is used.

It is amazing the amount of work that goes into a hand knotted area rug. First the design has to be thought up,drawn out and colours identified on graph paper. Then the weaver gets the wool ready, which can include shearing, spinning and dyeing the wool.

Next comes the weaving of the rug which can take a few months to years. After the rug is done it is trimmed even, washed, dried and sent to market.

All to be walked on for years. Quite an amazing process when you think about it.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

Summertime rug cleaning

The month is ending on a mixed note. We have one day where we get lots of rugs dropped off for cleaning and a few are picked up. The next day lots will get picked up and hardly any will come in. Some day we will have a balanced day, someday. Depending on the Saturday we can have a good mix of drop offs and pick ups, but with the summertime it seems to be one or the other.

August was a busier month than July, but September is busier than August.

September is busy because vacations are over, the company has gone home, and the summertime running in and out is dwindling down. Area rugs collect a lot of loose dirt, sand and debris over the busy summer months. With the seasons soon changing many people swap their area rugs. They have summer rugs and winter rugs, just like your wardrobe and they get their summer rugs cleaned before storing.
Always get your area rugs cleaned before storing!

I have written a few blogs about that topic.
Moths and other critters have no problem making your rug home for a few months/years.

Clean rugs lack the necessary nutrients moths need to survive. Getting your rugs cleaned adds to the health of your homes environment. With the temperatures going lower we are keeping our windows and doors closed more. Removing the dust/dirt/debris from your rug makes the indoor air better.
Here's saying goodbye to a great summer and looking forward to a wonderful autumn.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

How to turn summertime blues into clean rugs

In the summer months business can drop off a bit. With people on vacation there is little thinking about getting their area rugs cleaned. What can you do to help ease the summertime blues?

While you are listening to the song 'Summertime Blues' you can go through your past cleaning orders and select people to contact.

Go back a year or two or even as little as six months and send them a postcard with a reminder that their rug needs to be cleaned again.

You could even include a 5-10% off coupon for scotch guard, rug under pad, if you carry it, or any other service you provide.

Also give the postcard an expiry date that is clearly visible. The expiry can be two weeks or thirty days. Anything longer and it could get forgotten.

It is a good idea to not print the expiry date on the card but stamp or hand write it in, that way you can print off a large amount and use them throughout the year.

The postcard doesn't have to be fancy or expensive. There are tools in Microsoft Office or Word that have templates you can use. Once you have designed it your local Copy and Print Center can print them up for you.

You can also print out the cards yourself, that way you can personalize them by letting the client know when the last time they had a particular rug cleaned. Many people may not remember the last time their area rug was cleaned.

In October, you could send out postcards reminding people that with the holidays fast approaching their area rugs need to get freshened up for company. If you offer scotch guard like finish give it a 3-6 month warranty that within that time frame they can bring it in for a free of 1/2 priced cleaning. That way the client can take care of any spills or messes that my have occurred over the holiday season.

By sending previous clients a reminder it lets them know that you care about the health of their rug. It is also a good way to let clients know if you added a new service.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

Area Rug Passion=More Clients

Yesterday I still felt like I was in a tornado. I was still reeling in the excitement of winning the Juno weekend trip and I started to realize all the things I needed to do this week at work and at home. I got to work around 11:40 due to a morning appointment and that made the day go by fast. It was also very steady day of clients picking up their clean area rugs and dropping off dirty ones, plus the phone calls were constant as well. It was a nice normal day.
It seems lately that Luv-A-Rug has been getting what we call tester rugs for cleaning. They usually are a synthetic rug that is used in front of the kitchen sink or an entryway rug. New clients are seeing how we clean their inexpensive rugs and test our knowledge on area rugs to make sure we know what we are doing. After we clean their first rug they bring us their more expensive area rugs for cleaning and sometimes repair. Yes Luv-A-Rug does rug repairs.
Yesterday I spent at least 30 minutes or more with a wonderful lady, I will call her Lady A. She brought in her synthetic 2x3 area for cleaning. She asked me if I knew much about area rugs, I responded that I did indeed. She wanted me to show her some different kinds of area rugs and what made them different or better than other rugs. I showed her some Persians, Belgium's and machine made area rugs. We were discussing rug repairs when another client, Lady B, came in to the shop to pick up her area rug that we had cleaned and did a binding edge on all four sides. We all got chatting about area rug repairs and Lady B told the Lady A that we, Luv-A-Rug, was the place to bring your rugs to for cleaning and especially for repair. Back in February Lady B brought in a Persian for cleaning and we also did a hand repair to the ends of the rug. She was very happy with the repair which included evening up the ends and doing an overcast stitch to stop the rug from fraying any more.
Lady A also wanted to cover a foot stool kind of thing, a hashick?, in an area rug instead of using fabric. I showed her the chair that we have covered in a flat woven rug. It is wrapped around the chair and stapled. Voila! a new chair. She instantly thought of a red flat woven area rug that her father gave to her son and that got her thinking. The rug has a horse in the middle of it and she said that it would work perfect for what she had in mind. The hard part was trying to figure out who does that sort of thing. We have sent area rugs to our hand repair guy to be made into pillows, but never a piece of furniture. She was going to try a few upholstery places to see what they had to say.







Lady A was very thankful for all my knowledge and help. With her 2x3 synthetic area rug we are not only cleaning it we are also putting our protective finish on it to help repel dirt and stains and we are removing the fringes and putting a binding edge on. She is going to bring us some of her other rugs for cleaning and we will discuss repairs as needed. She wishes I could go with her when she goes rug shopping so she doesn't buy an area rug that isn't going to last or isn't such a great deal. I gave her a lot of information to arm her against such things. My only wish is that rug manufactures would stop making area rugs that do not last, are not made to be walked on, and that cannot be cleaned.
Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

A More Refined RugloverMary

Welcome to my new area rug blog. I still have RugloverMary and will continue writing it as always. The reason I am starting a second rug blog is to write a more technical blog concentrating on area rug cleaning and repair. I hope that you follow me on my new blog journey.