How To Choose Your RavishingRug.

An area rug enhances a room in many ways—by adding color, defining furniture arrangements, providing a soft touch underfoot and uniting diverse elements. They also protect the floor, hide flaws, provide warmth and diminish noise.Before you start to look at rugs, measure your space and your major pieces of furniture. A sketch of the room’s layout would be helpful. Photos of the room would provide additional details to assist in the selection process. Size of rug does matter. Too large a rug will dwarf its surroundings, while too small a rug will get lost in the room. The carpet should complement the scale and proportion of the room.

Rugs are one of the smartest ways to define space. For example, placing a rug beneath a table and chairs is ideal for creating a smaller space within a larger area. Rugs can also unify the decor within a spacious room, providing transition to a surrounding area.

Most dining room tables, for example, require an 8-foot-wide area rug. To determine what size rug you need, measure the length and width of the table and add at least three to four feet to these measurements. The chair legs shouldn’t fall off the rug when people are seated at the table or pulling away the chairs from the table to sit down.

When considering a rug for an entire room you should leave an equal amount of flooring exposed as a border on all sides. If that is not possible, try to ensure the borders on parallel sides of the rug are equal. When sizes of hand knotted rugs are quoted, they do not include the fringes at each end, so be sure to take the extra 4-5” of length into consideration.

For many rooms, an 8- by 11-foot carpet works quite nicely.

In an ideal world, always select your rug first, working from the floor up in your decorating. If that is not possible, then have in hand your paint chips, samples of fabric and perhaps a sofa pillow to be able to accurately blend or match with your RavishingRug.

Today, there are many choices of natural or synthetic fibers. Wool is considered to be the superior fiber because of its dyeability, durability, softness and easy care.

It’s important to remember this simple rule of thumb: the higher the knot count, the greater the quality of the rug. The more knots per square inch there are, the longer the rug will last.

The craftsmanship of a carpet is evident in the knot count. For instance, a 3-foot by 5-foot carpet with 80 knots per square inch (172,800 knots per carpet) requires about one month to hand knot and finish while the same size in 100 knots (216,000 knots per carpet) takes 40 to 60 days to complete.

Knot counts in good quality hand knotted rugs generally range from 60-100 knots per square inch. Silk carpets will run much higher. The best way to count knots is to carry a measuring tape, three straight pins and magnifier with you. Turn the rug over so that the knots can be seen on the back and lay the tape measure out along the horizontal line of the weft. Measure out one inch and mark that inch with the pins. Using the magnifier and the remaining pin, count the knots on the horizontal weft. Repeat the process on the vertical warp. Multiply the two numbers and you have confirmed the knots per square inch. As the knots per square in increase, the depth of the pile decreases.

High quality wools are very thick and luxurious but, because of this, it can be challenging to dye them so that the color completely penetrates the fiber. If proper expertise has not been used in the dying of the fibers it will be particularly noticeable in dark colors and will show up on the surface of the rug as colors that are rather mottled looking.

Other methods used to determine that you are actually looking at a hand knotted rug are by looking at the back of the carpet. The carpet pattern will be clearly visible on the back of the rug and will not be covered over by cotton or latex backing.

Fringes will form an integral part of the rug; they are the warps. They will not be sewn on and are the same fiber as the warps. RavishingRugs use 100% cotton warps. It is possible to have fringes removed. Hand knotted rugs have hand finished edges. Imperfections in design and color can be detected. This is part of what makes each rug unique.

Our carpets are much more than home décor pieces. They are lasting family heirlooms that, with proper care, will last for generations. These functional works of art are easily rolled up and transported when you move. On a cost-per-square-foot basis, they offer far more versatility and charm than any mass-produced carpet.

With the proper knowledge, you will select a rug that will add elegance and value to your home and provide years of enjoyment.