Area Rugs & Runners

Quality area rugs offer a positive and lasting effect on your home. Products that beautify your home, enhance design and décor, meet your specific comfort, performance and budget needs, are easy to care for, and stand the test of time. Area rugs can transport your rooms from ordinary to extraordinary. The fastest way to change a mood or character of a room is to add an area rug.

Free In-Home Estimates. Call 847-639-1855.

Area Rugs can:

• goes over any flooring type with proper pad
• starting point for room décor
• can be a design centerpiece
• delivers a colorful finishing touch
• can define a space
• creates a conversation area, designate an eating space, welcome you or usher guests down a hallway

Other unique capabilities:

• only flooring that you can pick up and move
• change each season or as your style changes
• offer softness, warmth and sound absorption
• can be laid over carpet
• cost spectrum is as wide and varied as the type
• can be very inexpensive (cotton and synthetic)
• can last hundreds of years
• can be an investment and heirloom or disposable
• “machine made” rugs mimic handmade rugs at reduced costs
• color is more affordable than ever
• generally made out of wool, silk, (or a blend of wool/silk), olefin (polypropylene), nylon, or cotton (bathmats)
• wool and silk dominate the high end market
• heat set olefin rugs look like wool, easy to clean, and are moderately priced compared to wool

Area rugs offer the most variety in floor coverings. But before you buy, you need to know just a couple more things about them — other than that they can define a space and elevate your décor. Whether you choose handmade or machine made, antique or thoroughly modern, you need to consider these questions:

What Size And Shape?

Area rugs are made in standard and non-standard sizes and they can be rectangular (most common), round, square, oval, octagonal or long and narrow for runners. The most common sizes are 2’x3’, 4’x6’, 5’x8’, 6’x9’, 8’x10’ and up.

Choosing the correct size area rug depends on the dimensions of the space you want to cover. Here are some hints on how to figure out what size rug you need.

If you are thinking square or rectangle, place a piece of paper where each of the corners will fall in the area you wish to cover. Measure the space and adjust the “corners” as needed to make the space larger or smaller given the standard rug sizes. You’ll probably have to go up or down a few inches. Take your time.

If you’re considering a round rug, you can run a piece of tape from the center of the space you want to cover to the outside edge. Measure it. This gives you the radius of the circle. Double it and you have the diameter. Round rugs are sold by the diameter. Again, you may have to adjust it up or down to reach a standard rug size.

Oblongs or ovals are measured like rectangles — by the length of the longest part and the width of the widest part. You can run a piece of tape on your floor to determine the length and a second to determine the width. You will have a large cross taped to your floor, but it will tell you how big an oblong you need to cover the space.

If you choose to cover the whole room with your area rug, it is best to leave a 12-inch to 15-inch border of flooring exposed to frame your rug.

Rugs that are destined to go under the dining room table should be large enough so that when seated at the table, the back legs of your guests’ chairs are on the rug with enough space to push back and stand up. This way, no one has to go over the edge to get up from the table.

One more thing. When you buy, bring a tape measure. A 9’x12’ rug often isn’t. Like textile clothing sizes, they need to be “tried-on”, or at least measured so you know what true size you are actually buying, particularly if it is a handmade rug. Don’t be surprised if it’s a little short in each direction.

Free In-Home Estimates: Call 847-639-1855.

What Color?

Color is at least as important for an area rug as how it’s made. The combination of color, design and setting (your room) all come together to create your own personal artistic statement.

Area rugs don’t have to match the colors of the room precisely. Great interior design often features combinations of colors that either contrast or compliment a room’s primary color scheme. But a good rule of thumb is to stick to one primary shade and two additional colors.

Pattern

Pattern is divided into three categories in the rug industry: curvilinear, geometric and pictorial. Knowing what kind of pattern you prefer can help narrow the field a bit.

Curvilinear literally means curved lines. It refers to patterns with swirl, arc and bows.

Geometric refers to patterns based on simple geometric shapes such as, lines, triangles, squares and rectangles.

Pictorial, the smallest group, refers to patterns that portray people, animals and scenes.

Style

Style is such an ambiguous idea. It simply means a distinctive manner of expression. Over time, names get attached to the word style: Contemporary style. Classical style. Art Deco style. Your style can draw on bits and pieces of all of these and more. It is a personal expression of the way you want to live your life.

Rugs also have acquired styles: Natural, Navajo, Oriental, Persian, Chinese, Turkoman, Caucasian, Tibetan, Indian and Colonial, just to name just a few. No one expects you to know all of these or even some of these. You need to know what you like. If you do some research and find an image of an area rug you find attractive, take it to your retailer and then you can discuss what style it is. It’s another way of beginning the search.

What Now?

Once you know the direction you are traveling, there is only one final lesson. Know and trust your retailer. If you are shopping for antique rugs, this is fundamentally important. All investments should be made with the help of a knowledgeable counselor.

If this not an investment, then what you have learned here will guide you to buying the best area rug in the right style for the right price.

Finally, Be Calculating!

Figure the total cost of rug ownership. The price on the tag of the rug you’re buying is just one component of your cost. You don’t want any of those Aha! moments, right?

Product Delivery

Delivering your rug and padding is happily provided by Wholesale Carpets & Flooring- shopping with us is easy!

Being familiar with area rug construction also helps you understand and evaluate performance aspects: why certain rugs wear better and longer. Understanding how area rugs are created help you better determine rug value and keep you inside the borders of your budget.

MACHINE MADE

• less expensive
• not considered investments
• more flexibility and variety
• woven rugs created on automated weaving looms
• elaborate designs created by placement of different colors of yarn

MAN MADE

• handmade (also called hand knotted)
• custom-made
• one-of-a-kind designs
• incorporate creative, brilliant uses of color
• unique details and intricacies in each due to the village, city or country of the creator
• often created with natural dyes for color longevity
• considered an investment
• many become heirlooms
• ancient and unique process

Elements that tie any handmade rug together, Weave & Knot

Weaving, a technique used in making handmade rugs

Three major techniques: pile weave, flat weave and hand-tufted

Pile Weave

• method of weaving used in most rugs
• rug is woven by a creation of knots
• different weaving groups use different types of knots
• every single knot is tied by hand
• can consist of 25 to over 1000 knots per square inch
• skillful weavers tie knots in about ten seconds (meaning it would take a skillful weaver 6,480 hours to weave a 9×12-foot rug with a density of 150 knots per square inch)
• time reduced with workshops or multiple weavers

Flat Weave

• technique of weaving where no knots are used
• warp strands used as the foundation
• weft stands are used as the foundation and in the patterns
• called flat weaves since no knots are used in the weaving process and the
• surface looks flat

Hand Tufted

• created without tying knots into the foundation
• pile height determined by amount of yarn cut off
• less time consuming than hand-tying each knot
• requires a high level of craftsmanship
• can be made faster than hand-knotted rugs
• generally less expensive than hand-knotted
• highly durable and accurate
• weathers foot traffic for years

Knotting, woven by tying knots on the warp strands.
Two predominant types of knots: asymmetrical and symmetrical

Asymmetrical (Persian or Senneh) Knot:

• used in Iran, India, Turkey, Egypt and China
• to form, yarn is wrapped around one warp strand and then passed under the neighboring warp strand and brought back to the surface
• creates a finer weave

Symmetrical (Turkish or Ghiorde) Knot:

• used in Turkey, the Caucasus and Iran by Turkish and Kurdish tribes

Knot Density:

• refers to the number of knots per square inchor square decimeter in a handmade rug
• measured in the imperial system in square inches and in the metric system in square decimeters
• KPSI is sometimes used to indicate value
• higher the number of knots per square inch, the higher the quality, and price

Dying- two types of dyes: natural dyes and synthetic dyes

Natural Dyes:

• natural dyes only used until late 19th century
• include plant dyes, animal dyes and mineral dyes
• plant dyes come from roots, flowers, leaves, fruit, and the bark of plants
• woad, (plant of the mustard family and indigo, a bush from the pea family, used for blue dye
• yellow is produced from saffron, safflower, sumac, turmeric, onionskin, rhubarb, weld, and fustic
• Madder, Redwood and Brazilwood has been used since ancient times for reds
• browns and blacks come from catechu dye, oak bark, oak galls, acorn husks, tea, and walnut husks
• henna is used for orange
• for green, indigo, over-dyed with any of a variety of yellow dyes, is used
• mineral dyes come from ocher (yellow, brown, red), limestone or lime (white), manganese (black), cinnabar and lead oxide (red), azurite and lapis lazuli (blue), and malachite (green)

Synthetic Dyes:

• mid-nineteenth century, when demand for handmade rugs increased in the West, production increased in the East
• need for easy-to-use and less expensive dyes with a wider range of colors caused development of synthetic dyes in Europe.
• first synthetic dye, Fuchsine (a magenta aniline), was developed in the 1850s
• other synthetic aniline dyes followed, later banned by the Persian king
• Persian weavers discontinued the use of synthetic dyes until the modern synthetic chrome dyes developed between World Wars I and II
• chrome dyes are colorfast, retain their intensity and are produced in a variety of attractive colors and shades
• mostly chrome synthetic dyes are used for coloring weaving yarns
• natural dyes are used in places where they are easily obtainable