Pick a rug with a BUSY design so the yellow stains will not be so obvious. We at RugWash can generally wash the odour out of woven rugs, but stains can often be permanent.

Use an UNDERLAY under your rug (available from RugWash) even if it does not slide or buckle on you, because this will help create a barrier between your rug and your floor. If pet urine penetrates your rug and gets into your flooring, you will have a much larger odour removal problem on your hands, especially if you have specialty hardwood floors. It may not be possible to remove the odour short of replacing the floor, so underlay can help protect you from the worst case scenario or at least delay the inevitable if your pets are not properly trained.

BAD ODOUR. Some of our customers experience an unpleasant odour in their tufted rugs and assume that it is urine odour. Tufted rugs produced in India or China have been known to have an odour that can vary from mild to offensive. The reason for this odour is the latex glue used to make them. The glue is usually low quality and sometimes mixed with fillers, such as marble dust, to make it spread further. the smell is permanent; no amount of professional cleaning or deodorising products are able to remove it.

Handmade Turkish rugs are great value! Don’t believe me? Well let’s do the sums…

Let’s take a 9 x 12 rug that sells for $3999. as an example

A 9 x 12 rug is 108 square feet, or 15,552 square inches (108 x 144)

Let’s say that this rug is of medium quality and had 150 knots per square inch.

150 knots x 15,552 square inches = 2,332,800. So, One 9 x 12 rug has over two million Knots!!!

A good weaver can weave about 5,000 knots/day.

So keeping that in mind… 2,332,800/5000 = 466 days.

3 weavers work on a 9 x 12 rug. 466 days / 3 = 155 days per weaver or 31 weeks.

31 weeks x 40hrs per week = 1240 hrs per weaver or 3720 hours total!

3720 x $7.15 ( min wage) = $26,598. $26,598 is for weaving time only!

Add on the cost of the wool and cotton, plus the cost to spin and dye the wool and also design work, loom set-up, finishing, and washing, and also the shipping cost.

So taking into account the amount of time, materials, care and craftmanship that goes into creating just a single handmade rug, and the fact that they last for decades, you can’t deny the amazing value you are getting!

City rugs: Finely woven carpets with intricate designs laid down by master weavers in workshops throughout the major producing cities. The city rugs are more realistic in the motifs that they use. That is, the drawing is curved more naturally, when there are flowers, they are more immediately recognisable as such, where there are pictorials, it is the same situation. For instance Hereke and Kayseri are from the Turkish city rugs group. Isfahan, Kashan, Kerman, Nain, Tabriz, are from the Persian city rugs group.

Tribal rugs: Conversly tribal carpets employ more geometry in their designs. Elements are more figuratively represented, animals and people are blockier, and there are more sharp squares and various polygons in the designs. For instance Milas, Dosemealti, Canakkale are from the Turkish tribal rugs group and Bakhtiari, Gabbeh, Hamadan, Bijar are from the Persian tribal rugs group.

Can I use different rugs in the same room?

• You can use rugs of different patterns in the same room as long as the colours coordinate.
• Using two rugs of the same size may tend to divide the room in half. Select rugs of differing sizes to create more interest and contrast.
• To make your decision easier, many rug manufacturers make rugs in different sizes that are designed to coordinate with each other.

Some people seem to think that bargaining is beneath them, or they get angry when a price they suggest is rejected. Others won’t bargain for fear of getting ripped off; a classic example of nothing ventured nothing gained. And there are those who’ll haggle hard to drive a price right down, then walk away without buying.

Once you begin to bargain it means you’ve already decided to buy, at an appropriate price. The seller knows that but doesn’t know your price. And you don’t know his, although you both know the first sum to be mentioned will be ridiculous. This it what makes bargaining such fun. It’s also a fantastic learning experience over many cups of tea.

Go shopping in Turkey early in the morning because it is good luck for the merchant to make the first sale of the day.

Don’t show interest in the item you actually wanted. Haggle over something else then mid-way through your negotiations casually turn your attention to your “preferred” purchase in an off-handed manner while still showing some interest in the original one. It will throw the stall-keeper off.

Never rush! The merchant spends most of his life engaged at this level so don’t feel bad about taking your time.

The art of haggling demands that you learn to feign indifference. Gushing over a rug then asking its price is a disastrous approach!

If you have a local contact in Turkey, do what I did and ask them as to how much they usually pay for something.

And remember; if you bargain yourself senseless over every dollar, you sacrifice a lot of the joy of travelling.

In the rug market, now more than ever before, there are many designs and colours of kelims and kelim-like rugs from which to choose.

Kelims have a flat weave and no pile at all. They are made of wool. The yarn is twisted so tightly that when woven it can resemble heavy linen.

The designs are generally geometric. Colours are rich with several contrasting shades, but in decided harmony.

In certain rug weaving countries (e.g Iran), kelims, because of its soft texture, serve many purposes: Floor coverings, blankets, curtains, hammocks for babies, horse blankets, saddle bags, tent doors, even for wrapping bales and bundles.

Today kelims and kelim-like rugs are woven in many different parts of the world and they make a wonderful addition to any home. They are certainly worth considering when looking to purchase a new rug.

The Sarouk rug is named after an obscure village 30kms north of Arak (Sultanabad) on the western fringe of the Ferahan Plain in Iran. Although most of these carpets were undoubtedly produced in other villages or in Arak itself, they are still known by the original Sarouk label, which has become something of a trade name. Other weaving centres in the Arak province are Ferahan and Lillihan.

They apparently bagan to appear in quantity during the 1880′s as a response to demand from Tabrizi merchants and Western markets. A few specimens that could clearly be described as Sarouks show dates from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The Sarouk soon became well established and was sought by both Americans and Europeans.

Production continued until World War 1, when the European market was closed, and the industry suffered a momentary decline. When it revived to meet the great American demand of the 1920′s, the product was of an entirely different nature. Which was the advent of the “American Sarouk” . These Persian Sarouk rugs were made specifically for the American market, whose taste required a thicker pile. An aggresive chemical washing was given to American Sarouks. the deep rose coloured fields of these rugs were chemically stripped and re-dyed dark burgundy by hand in the United States.

The wool in different sections of Iran varies greatly. In the desert and dry lands the sheep do not grow the thick, heavy coat that the sheep of the colder mountainous districts and the well watered plains of Northern Iran grow. Also, the shearing and sorting of wool is an importent item, since the quality varies even on the same animal. Sheep’s wool and lamb’s wool also vary greatly in quality. Wool is actually modified hair. Each fibre contains certain cells.  Wool also has a protein fibre in it called Keratin, that can attract moths. They can lay their eggs and the larvae will eat the protein fibres to survive and turn into a moth.

Many other points enter into determining the quality of the wool. For instance, as a rule, the Spring clipping is usually a better and stronger wool than the Autumn clipping.

Skin Wool or dead wool

This means wool taken from a sheep that has been butchered. The method often used is to use lye which permits the wool to be scraped off with a knife with ease. Naturally, the wool fibres are damaged and a rug made up of such wool will wear thin in a few years. This wool has a dry and dead feel to touch and be quickly detected if used extensively in a rug. If only used in a portion of the rug, even the expert dealer may miss it and you may find your rug getting thin in spots in a few years. In saying this, it is uncommon for this method to be used in the weaving of rugs. But it is worth knowing about.

The reign of Henry IV of France (1589-1610) is marked by policies and public works implemented to improve the country and the life of his people.  He is credited with greatly furthering the development of the arts and crafts of France. During his reign, the methods to create hand-knotted carpets were introduced to France by the weaver Pierre Dupont and became an important industry during the reign of Henry IV’s eldest child, Louis XIII (1610-1643).  The west’s fascination with rugs from the Orient and the desire to keep the gold and silver being spent on these imports in the country drove Dupont and French kinds to establish their own hand-made rug industry.

Initially, Dupont set about his work at the Louvre where talented artisans could flourish under royal patronage. In 1626, for financial e, Pierre Dupont and Simon Lourdet, a former apprentice, formed a partnership to produce rugs. In 1627, the Savonnerie rug factory was established in a former soap making facility in Chaillot outside Paris. The term Savonnerie means “soap works or soap factory”.

Today, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris is located at this site. The partners were granted a patent by Louis XIII in 1627 which protected them by prohibiting the importation of oriental or other foreign rugs into France. Only rugs made in France could be bought and sold in the country while Dupont and Lourdet could purchase the materials needed for their weaving from wherever they chose. This patent was granted for 18 years.

In the late 1660s, the Savonnerie rug came into its own with two projects commissioned by Louise XIV totaling 106 carpets. In 1825, the Savonnerie works were moved to the Gobelins factory in Paris where it is now operated by the French Ministry of Culture.

Anyone who has spoken to Stephen about their rug is aware of his true passion for rugs and the industry and his extensive knowledge across a broad range of rugs. 

As the owner of RugWash for over five years, Stephen’s industry knowledge has grown and extended the rich RugWash history which dates back to 1957.  There is no doubt that the business was different back then in the respected hands of its founder, Hans Fischer but over the past several years Stephen has ensured that it has kept pace with industry innovations by taking the time to attend international educational courses such as the Dallas based Master Rug Cleaner course.

The Master Rug Cleaner course (co-ordinated by Ellen Amirkhan and Aaron Groseclose) provides the opportunity for industry professionals to extend their knowledge of rugs and the specialised cleaning of rugs. 

Of course, there are many other attributes that combine to ensure excellence in service such as specialised plant and equipment and, most importantly, an honest interest in the beauty and care of rugs.  

The Master Rug Cleaner certification is just another way of ensuring that our valued Brisbane customers receive the service that they deserve.

“RugWash – Brisbane’s only professional rug cleaning plant”

We hope you enjoy our article on the use of rugs in Iran.

People in Iran do not consider rugs as mere floor coverings.  They have many different uses for them such as room dividers, furniture coverings, drapes as well as table covers.

Picture rugs are hung like oil paintings, cushions are made of fine rugs, pocket-books and saddle-bags are woven for travelling and for children to carry their school books.

Long and narrow rugs are woven for mosque pillars. Fine carpets are spread before a seat of honour.

It is a gesture of respect to greet a dignitary by spreading rugs two blocks long as an act of welcome. The finest rugs are selected by the Government as official gifts,such as the persian (oriental) rug in the United Nations.

Certain quality rugs are still bought and stored in the homes of the wealthy as a sure and profitable investment. The degree of a family’s wealth is apparent by the quantity and quality of rugs they use in their formal living room.