The Care and Feeding of Antiques

Oriental Carpets

by Dexter S. Augier

Purchasing oriental carpets for your home involves adding quite a bit to your data base…you’ll hear about geometric versus floral designs, about nomadic versus village patterns, about knots per square inch, about vegetable and aniline dyes, about warp and woof, about Giordes and Senneh knots, about new versus old…all this and more, before you ultimately ask “do I like this rug, and does the price correspond with its value?”

Many have learned the old adage “you get what you pay for” very much applies to oriental carpets. Good rugs hold their value, or increase in value….that should say a lot about the quality of rugs sold in tents or hotel auctions by traveling rug merchants at

Drastically Reduced Prices! !

After all, one of the big reasons we buy oriental carpets is because of their reputation for being so durable and lasting several lifetimes…. we don’t want to find out in a few years that the ‘bargain’ we got was because the wool was dry rotted, or the warp was too tight and it cracked, or that the pile was poorly sheared, leaving an uneven wear pattern, etc, etc.

When you buy from a reputable dealer, you can choose to forgo having to know all the details, and focus on the color and design that will be best for your home and lifestyle.

But now that you have that beautiful carpet, and patted yourself on the back for not only spending your money wisely, but greatly adding to the beauty of your home…..now, how do you take care of your rug (and your investment) so that it stays both beautiful and valuable?

So here then are some basic guidelines to help you do just that…. without worrying that you are doing too little or too much.

1. First you need a pad. Pads do several things, they protect the rug from wearing unevenly on uneven floors, like brick or tile, they keep the rug from sliding underfoot, and they help the rug “breath” and not mildew. The type and thickness of the pad depends on the floor. An uneven floor calls for a thicker pad, 1/8” or 1/4”. We prefer a dense rubber pad made specifically for oriental carpets that will not mold or mildew. Others prefer a jute/hair pad because it’s denser. We find that this type pad can trigger allergies, and the humidity of our climate often makes them smell. There is another type of rubber pad that looks like an open weave. These are thinner, and are great for flat floors because they don’t raise the height of the carpet. They’re also hypo-allergenic and mildew resistant.

2. Dirt is a major enemy, particularly sand. It filters down into the carpet pile, and minutely cuts the fibers with its sharp edges as you walk on the rug. We recommend a beater-type vacuuming on a regular basis…daily or weekly, depending on your particular lifestyle. It’s important to keep the beater head OFF the four edges of the rug, or you’ll wind up doing more harm than good! If yours is an old and or fragile carpet, then you should not use the beater type vacuum.

3. Routinely, again, according to your lifestyle, your rug should be professionally washed. If it gets a lot of traffic, especially from the outside, then it should be washed every 2-3 years. In the mean time, you can ‘freshen up’ your rug yourself. Dust, cooking particles, pollen, etc. settle on the surface of your carpet. Vacuuming keeps most of these from building up, but not the grease or oil laden particles. These will slowly give your beautiful rug a gray tinge. Not to worry! This is easily and safely removed. Take a bucket of room temperature water, add a cup of distilled white vinegar, (NOT apple cider, just the cheap white vinegar from the grocery store) mix it up, soak a terrycloth towel in it, wring it as dry as you can, then using a circular motion, systematically scrub the surface of the rug, leaving the pile standing up. You only want to wet the surface of the pile. This will cut the grease, and put life back into the rug.

4. Watch for moths…they would just as soon eat your rug as your cashmere jacket! Benjamin Franklin’s saying “Here Skugg lies snug as a bug in a rug” is catchy, but unfortunately, bugs refuse to stay snug, and begin to eat their way out! Any sign of moths in the house, and you should spray the underside of the carpet with something like Raid flying insect spray. Ideally, if the rug isn’t too large, take it outside on a hot summer day. Vacuum it on the back side (this will loosen a lot of dirt, too), then spray the back surface with the Raid. If you do this in the morning, then flip the carpet around noontime, you can let it bask in the hot sun for the rest of the day. Vacuum it once more, and then bring it in ‘till next year. The sun does something wonderful for the wool fibers, and this short exposure won’t cause fading.

5. If you see signs of raveling on any of the four sides, then call your dealer. This is not very expensive to correct if done right away, before the knots start coming out. Also, if an edge curls, and refuses to lay flat (this sometimes happens on tightly woven rugs) it will wear quickly on that curl. This can be professionally corrected by blocking.

6. If a rug gets regular traffic, then turn it 180° once a year. This can double the life of your rug!

7. If the rug gets wet to its core, there is a danger of mildew, and of the cotton foundation rotting. Both are very harmful, if not fatal, to rugs, and should be dealt with immediately. Spills, on the other hand, and accidents by children or pets are not catastrophic if handled at once. Blot as much as you can with a dry towel or paper towels. Keep blotting until you’ve removed as much of the liquid as possible. Dilute the spill with water. Use enough to wet the stain but not to soak the rug. I recommend a wet terry cloth towel. Continue blotting with a white cloth to remove as much of the diluted stain as possible. Use a solution of 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar per 1 cup of water to dilute pet urine stains. As with other stains, keep blotting until you remove as much of the liquid as possible. Place a fan to blow on the wet area until it dries. Consider taking your rug to a professional oriental rug cleaner as soon as you can if you just can't get the stain out yourself.

Your carpet can age well, becoming more beautiful than when you bought it….and you can continue that back patting!!

Did you know...?

by Dexter S. Augier

The motifs, or designs in an oriental carpet all mean something, for instance wealth, faith, paradise, abundance, etc.  Each is associated with its motif, like a palm, a pomegranate, bird, camel, paisley, and so forth.  But interestingly, even in the cultures as old as those that produce such treasures, some of the meanings of the motifs have been lost and are now only used because of tradition.    Perhaps we should be careful lest we fall to the same apathy….is it possible that one day we’ll forget what the American Eagle stands for!