How To Mess Up Your Area Rugs – What You DON’T Want to Do! – Sedona AZ
Ruthie with Arizona Oriental & Specialty Rug Care here in Prescott and sometimes I have to remind clients that there are some rugs that you just can’t use both sides of!
We recently had a client bring a rug back to us that we had originally cleaned 8 months prior. It was a Persian rug with short, plush pile and our client complained that his rug was leaving a mysterious dark substance on the floor beneath it. He even took a photo of the substance on the floor and sure enough, it looked like a pile of dark dust all over his tile. His first thought was that we had left all that dust in his rug when we cleaned it – but that wasn’t the case!
Turns out that his wife thought that turning the rug upside down would provide a softer surface against her newly-finished tile. Doing this, however, pressed the delicate wool face fibers down into the hard tile and wide grout lines. Grout is made up of a mixture of both sand and cement and is very hard and abrasive when it’s dry, just like sandpaper. Unfortunately, the rug fibers didn’t really stand a chance against this.
To make matters worse, this rug was also a long runner in an active hallway. Considering that people walk up and down the hallway many times a day, runners get the most use in the home. Every time someone walked over the rug, the delicate rug fibers were forced to grind themselves against the tile and, even worse, the grout.
You should NEVER turn a rug with pile upside down! Plush wool (and silk) face fibers are far too delicate to withstand this kind of treatment. Taking a look at the rug, you can see that they clearly have a soft top side and a sturdier back side. A piled rug has only one top and one bottom side and therefor is not reversible.
On the other hand, a dhurrie (flatweave) area rug can be used on both sides because there is no soft-cut pile to it. American Indian rugs can be flipped over and you can use both sides equally for this reason.
Till next time, enjoy your beautiful art for your floor and remember a clean rug is a rug that can last you a lifetime!
Arizona Oriental & Specialty Rug Care serves Prescott, Prescott Valley, Sedona and much of the Northern Arizona areas. We meet the highest standards in professional cleaning of area rugs with rug wash specialists having earned the highest training which includes certification as WOOLSAFE FIBRE CARE SPECIALISTS through the WOOLSAFE ORGANISATION. Such extraordinary certification ensures the area rugs of our client’s receive the utmost in care.
If you would like more information about if you can safely use either side of your rug or a free estimate, give us a call at 928-445-1718, visit our website at www.ArizonaOriental.com, or stop by Monday through Friday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at our rug washing facility at 565 EZ Street, Prescott, AZ 86301 (pick-up and delivery also available).(August 9, 2017)
