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What to Expect From Our Rugs
Our inventory consist of high quality hand knotted, hand tufted, hand hooked and power loomed area rugs from around the world. Each rug in our inventory is hand selected by the president of our company. We evaluate each aspect of color, material, design and trends before making the decision to add a rug to our inventory. If a client has a special rug in mind, custom products are also available.
Color Content
When looking at the color of an area rug, the composition should say something to you. Each rug has its place and not all are interchangeable. A rug with vegetable dyes will not have the same feel as a rug with non-vegetable dyes. In addition, the color saturation of a carpet, depending on the desires of the weaver, can be of a consistent tone, or contain an effect known as abbrash. It is the effect created by using different dye lots of the same color, and when done correctly, gives the rug a natural look: random yet continuous.
Wool
The type of wool will also affect the look of a carpet significantly. There is wool and then there is semi-worsted wool. Semi-worsted wool yields a beautiful strand of yarn with a high sheen and a very soft feel. Regular wool is coarser and has a duller look. The spinning method will give the rug strikingly different characteristics. Hand spun wool and machine spun wool differ very much in their look and feel. Each type of wool yields a different feel and can influence the overall appeal of a room.
Pattern and Design
A significant component of an area rug, to take into consideration when buying, is the design. For more than a thousand years, people have been moving back and forth between Eastern Europe and the Far East edge of Asia on what has become known as the Spice Trail. That movement has spawned the spread of countless designs and innovations in all walks of life, and the same is true with rug design.
Many designs are named after the city, tribe or region in which they first appeared. However, over the centuries those localized designs have moved around so that in our time, a rug named after a city could be manufactured in any number of places. The design gives us a history of its origin, but does not always tell us where a particular rug was made.
Designs that would be considered city rugs generally have greater detail in the design and a softer more refined look and feel. The weavers usually use wool that has a brighter sheen. The carpets also tend to have a tighter pattern with a higher knot count.
Tribal rugs typically have less detail in the design with more open spaces and basic figures and characters defining the area. The wool will normally be coarser in feel and muted in tone. Tribal rugs are generally made with a looser weave and lower knot count.
Rugs that do not fit into one of the above-mentioned categories fall into one of the following areas. Transitional rugs generally contain hints of city rug influence with natural patterns interspersed. Contemporary rugs have a more open design using natural and geometric patterns. Flat weaves such as Soumak and Dhurrie (Kilim) tend to look more like what we consider to be a Navajo Rug.
The knotting methods, the basic symbols used, the material preparation: they have all traveled from one end to the other of the Spice Trail. And the result today is a rich cultural history that we know as an Oriental Rug.
Rug Construction
We are proud of the fact that we offer only the finest quality rugs. Many of our traditional area rugs are hand knotted; guaranteeing that with proper care, each of those rugs will last many generations. Our hand knotted rugs can pass on from generation to generation, becoming family heirlooms.
A hand-tufted rug is made without tying knots into the foundation. The area rug is actually made by pushing wool or acrylic yarn through a primary backing, which creates a tuft. Once the tuft is created, latex is used to hold the tufts in place. A secondary foundation, or scrim, is then added to the hand-tufted area rug, which is then covered by a third and final cloth backing. Shearing the tops off the looped tufts to create the pile is the final step of making a hand tufted area rug. The height of the pile is determined by how much yarn is cut off, and how far the initial loop was pushed up. Hand tufted rugs can be made faster than hand knotted rugs, making them less expensive to purchase. The tufting method creates a highly durable and beautifully accurate handmade rug that will weather foot traffic for many years. Due to the construction method used, you will experience shedding of this type of rug. The amount of shedding is attributed to the quality of yarn used in its construction. This is common and will diminish over time or after its initial cleaning.
What you can expect from us
We pride ourselves on developing open and honest relationships with our clients. We provide in-home viewings. If the rug you need cannot be found in our inventory, provide us with an idea, a picture, or a specific request and we will search the globe to find the perfect rug. If we cannot find one to meet your needs, we can have one custom made to meet your specifications.
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