Stripe Rugs and Carpets Innovations

Striped rugs aren’t a new innovation, Gabbah’s, many of which are simple broad striped rug designs made in bright colours have been produced by Persian tribesmen for centuries. They say there is no such thing as an original concept and fashion like the shifting sands will continue to drift and mutate in any direction that the wind blows. While a stripe rug is just that, the sort of thing a child could design, the introduction of colour and texture can make something moderately simple into a complicated and beautiful centrepiece.

The current trend for striped rugs and carpets probably stems from the introduction of the many striped wall coverings presently available. These range from simple broad stripe two-tone to complex varied width stripes in multi-coloured designs. The innovation evolves from vertical stripes to horizontal stripes to diagonal stripes and even zigzag stripes. As the wall covering evolves so too does the home furnishing accessories, curtains, cushions, throws, rugs and carpets all want to coordinate and be an integral part of the stripe revolution.

One of the problems with stripes is too many in a confined space can be overpowering the secret is to use them in moderation. Using striped wallpaper only on a feature wall backed up with striped cushions and a stripe rug is about as heavy as you should take it. When it comes to rugs and fabrics don’t forget about the use of texture, different textures even when they use the same colours can produce an array of interesting effects.

Another example of the innovative use of texture can be found in the Carved Elements rug, the design is an uncomplicated broad and narrow stripe produced in a twist textured polypropylene fibre to ensure appearance retention and durability. Each stripe element has been accentuated by a hand carving separating the colours to give the simplistic design an additional dimension.

A rug shedding deduction for Midsomers Murders

I received a phone call from a set designer doing a little bit of detective work on rugs for TV a show. We have supplied rugs for many shows in the past including 60 minute makeover, DIY SOS, Cowboy Builders and Big Brother. But this request was more to do with counteracting the problems of rugs on a set. The program was ITV 1’s Midsomer Murders and the director was having problems with rugs shedding pile on set when actors walked over them. I suppose it wouldn’t make things easy forensic guys unless of course the victim had actually choked on carpet fluff. Don’t panic, there is no need to call in forensics for this one, the problem is actually a very simple one to overcome, particularly on a film or TV set. In true detective fashion let us look at the crime and examine the evidence.

Why is the rug losing or shedding its pile? The answer to this is basically because the yarn has been spun. Natural fibres such as wool are cut from a sheep’s back then they are washed combed and processed ready for spinning. The spinning process requires the short staple length of fleece to be spun into one long string of yarn. Although the yarn is one long length it is still made up of hundreds of thousands of short lengths of fleece.

So why does the rug shed fluff when my pure wool suit doesn’t? Your suit will be woven with a fine wool using a very tight weave where the even the very short lengths of yarn are locked in place preventing them from shedding or pilling. It is also fair to say that more open weaves like Harris Tweed which have a more open and courser finish can often pill and shed. When it comes to knitted wool garments pilling and shedding is more a dominant issue. A rug or carpet by nature is possibly the most open of all manufacturing methods and the exposed surface yarns are usually far longer than any of the aforementioned. This means it is even easier for the very short staple length of yarn to brake from the main body of the spun yarn, thus causing fluff. When the yarn stays attached it will turn into a small ball this is what we call pilling.

How can we stop wool and other natural fibres from shedding or pilling? The simple answer is we can’t, wherever there is a shorter staple length of yarn than the actual length of the tuft there is a very high probability that the yarn will break from the main tuft body. For example you will get more shedding form a long pile shaggy wool rug that you will from a short pile rug. The good news is the shedding won’t last forever and a vacuum cleaner bag full of wool from a rug is certainly not a manufacturing fault.

What are my options I do if I don’t want a rug or carpet to shed fluff? You can buy many rugs and carpets that won’t shed; this is because they use manmade BCF yarns. BCF is an abbreviation for Bulk Continuous Filament which means rather than being spun in thousands of short lengths the yarn is extruded and spun in one continuous process. This not only gives the yarn extreme strength you’d expect from a manmade fibre the added bonus is there is nothing to break off the yarn so it won’t shed either.

I have been informed that the two rugs we provided produced using a manmade fibre for a walk on part in the new series made an impressive debut performance. I don’t think they will be getting Oscars but they have stopped the director screaming blue murder about the balls of fluff on his set.

Hawaii Rugs styled with a floral tropics design

At a recent exhibition in Harrogate I stumbled upon an interesting floral rug design concept. While the design was by no means unique it did have hints of North American trends and the botanical essence of tropical Hawaii. The floral rugs designed with bold flowers much like the Hawaiian shirts and the colouring are subtly and tastefully contrasted to bring the tropics to your home. I can tell when good quality wool has been used to make a rug by the clarity of the yarn colour, cheaper yarn produces duller colours. The carving has been painstakingly etched by hand into the rug to bring floral rudiments of the design to life. As the rug is hand tufted the backing is jute.

It is difficult to say whether the rug would fall into the traditional or modern category, I think it just needs to be looked at as a rug that could look equally at home in modern or traditional surroundings. In the USA they would possibly describe the design as transitional which is a contemporary design with traditional elements.

The Hawaii rug is produced by hand in China under licence to a British Importer who is currently distributing on a very limited basis. The rug is produced in three sizes a medium sized 120cm x 180cm priced at around £200, a large sized 160 x 230cm priced at around £350 and an extra large 200cm x 290cm priced at around £480. Similar products available are Nourison Tropics Rug Collection but you can expect to pay a hefty premium for a similar design style.

Hand Made Wool Rugs

At rugzone.co.uk we understand that wool is the preferred fibre for many customers but with resent price escalations of the raw wool the cost of decent wool rugs has become prohibitively high. The majority of wool rugs sold in the United Kingdom are hand tufted in India or China and imported by wholesalers who transport the goods by sea in containers. The augmented costs of fuel have forced shippers worldwide to increase their transportation cost which in turn adds to the final price tag of the rug. Here in the UK we have not just had the escalating costs of raw material and oil. The chancellor also added his 2.5% to the end product by increasing Value Added Tax from 17.5% to 20%. Accepting the majority of home based products are going to cost us more this year than last is a foregone conclusion, it’s no wonder we’re becoming a little more diligent when searching for commodities.

Getting to grips with prices is the key to the majority of Internet based businesses, but sacrificing quality for price isn’t the answer. If the customer doesn’t perceive the products as good value or they will simply return them. So, it’s important to give the customer the best value that money can buy. This means being more astute than your competitors when choosing how and where to buy products like wool rugs.

With exports over $600 million India is the world’s third largest exporter of carpet and rugs the nucleus of which is Bhadohi, also known as Carpet City in the Uttar Predesh region of Northern India. This religion alone produces a massive 90% of India’s carpet and rug exports. You could imagine enormous factories employing thousands of people, but you would be wrong. In fact the rug weaving and tufting industry here is classified as a cottage industry, meaning there is an abundance of family homes and small workshops producing rugs and carpets in all shapes and sizes. The factories or export houses simply specify the designs and quality then finish the rugs, while the main production is contacted out to small workshops normally attached to the family home.

One way to achieve better prices on handmade wool rugs is to buy the rugs direct from the producers in India but you can’t just walk up and knock on someone’s door. Because it is cottage industry you would need to contract the labour of several families and you would have to know they were accomplished artisans. You would need to have the yarn pre-dyed and batched to maintain colour consistency, in the case of hand tufted rugs they would need to be backed and finished. There has to someone on the ground in India to co-ordinate the entire job from the raw material, to the finished goods loaded onto the container. So it is essential to find and work with an exporter you can trust to get the job done.

The new rugzone.co.uk wool rug collection is simply named “Bhadohi Cottage” in recognition of the cottage industry culture and the artisans of the Bhadohi region. The local wool and dyes are produced to the highest standard and the rugs has been finished by a trusted export house and imported by Rug Zone to ensure exceptional value.

Rugs that give your home natural ambience

New additions to the Encove rug collection will hit the rugzone.co.uk and iwantarug.com websites early in October. The two new ranges are natural look flat weave rugs that are durable and have the natural look of sisal. Flat weave natural rugs are very popular in most of continental Europe mainly because of their widespread use hard flooring and under floor heating. While the rug is an effective dirt barrier that is extremely easy to maintain the thin profile of the flat woven rug also has the benefit of preventing tripping accidents and it allows more heat to dissipate into the room.

Natural Weave:

Available in rugs and carpet runners Natural Weave is woven in a combination of two designs one a simple herringbone and the other a two tone basket weave effect giving a genuine feeling of natural sisal. The flat weave design of the rug means whilst it is extremely thin, it’s also ultra durable making it ideal for areas such as kitchens, bathrooms, conservatories and under dining tables that have heavy chair movement.
Because the surface and backing rug is produced entirely of polypropylene fibre it has the benefit of making the rug totally impervious to rotting in wet areas meaning it is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use.

Natural Flair:

A decorative flat woven Wilton rug and runner that is hardwearing and practical in any room in the home. The styling of the rug gives it the look of natural sisal while retaining the inherent stain resistance and durability of polypropylene fibre. Because of the rugs slim profile it is ideally suited to hard floors that have a high degree of foot traffic making it the likely choice for kitchens, halls and conservatories.

Both ranges of rugs and runners are available in a combination of small to extra large sizes that include a 67cm x 200cm runner.

I want a rug dot com

Encove Ltd has just launched iwantarug.com a brand new website for marketing and selling rugs. The challenge was to create a website that had the same low prices and fast dispatch as their highly rated Rugzone.co.uk website but enhancing the on-line experience by making it even easier to navigate.

The conventional way to search for a rug on a websites is to continually click through the endless categories of rug ranges hoping that you find the colour shape and size. Searching for rugs with iwantarug.com is very different to that of our competitors. We understand that customers generally don’t think of rugs by brand in the same way as they would say an electrical appliance. This means generic descriptions of rugs vague so searching using keywords is less effective.

At the iwantarug.com site you are not presented with a bank of categories; instead you simply narrow your search by selecting the shape of the rug you require. The next stage is to identify whether you want small rugs, medium rugs or large rugs, then the basic colour spectrum. In as little as three clicks your option are narrowed to just handful of rugs that should suit your requirements in shape, size, colour and of course price. Additionally there is a quick link on the description of the listing that when clicked will show you all other size and shape options in the selected colour and design.

Once you have selected your rugs, ordering is a simple process of completing your details and selecting your method of payment. You can pay with your credit card via our secure server or over the phone, if you have a PayPal or Goolge account you also have that payment option too. The delivery turnaround is fast, orders from stock paid for Monday to Friday before 2pm the rug should be delivered to your home the next working day.

All in all, the customer has the benefit of buying from one of the most experienced rug sellers on the Internet today.

Accessorizing your home with rugs

As homes in the UK are being adorned with so many earthy and natural tones it is beginning to feel like we are all refugees from the planet Ikea. With this minimalistic approach to decor that uses a typical combination of hardwood floors, leather suites, natural oak or glass dining tables and plain walls it basically comes down to the accessorizing of the soft furnishings and rugs to give a room individually.

Accessorizing simply means dressing the windows with curtains or blinds, hanging a picture there, scattering a few cushions here, sticking a vase in the corner and throwing a couple rugs to the floor. The advantage of minimalistic decor is accessorizing not just for the reason that it’s quick and easy to change the mood of a room, but it can be fun too. Because they can instantly add colour, texture and proportion, rugs can add immediate impact and take a room to new dimension. The shape of the rug is often ignored as we naturally think of rugs as being oblong, but many styles are also available round, oval or square. Rugs can be plain, tonal or patterned and come with a range of interesting textures. Just changing the shape of the rugs from oblong to circular or from plain to patterned can make a massive difference to overall atmosphere of a room.

By far the most popular styles today are shaggy rugs; these rugs are available in a vast combination of sizes, shapes and fibre types. Different fibres will produce so many diverse textures they simply have to be seen to be appreciated. Design is also a key element in shaggy rugs today as these can range from colourful retro styles to mundane tonal variants to shaggy rugs produced using rough cut leather strips.

Rugs can be used to theme a room for example animal prints designs such a zebra, tigers or leopards can give an ambience to a room whereas funky flowers and Union Jack designs can give the room the flavour of fun. Traditional design rugs can also bring elegance and majesty to a room while modern design rugs can produce an atmosphere of distinctiveness. Some rugs have features such as hand carving that follows the contour of the design, giving the pattern extra dimension. Other rugs come with design rudiments in a mix of velvet, plush, loop and twist textures that bestow contrasting depths and pattern elements.

Next time you shop for a rug think about what overall look you wish to achieve in your room and how it will fill your living space. Take into account shape, texture and design and remember a rug can be your most visible decorative accessory; it can say a lot about you, it can be as individual as you.

Treating liquid stains on rugs and carpets

It has always puzzled me as to why people tackle stains on carpets and rugs differently to other fabrics. I have seen it a hundred times or more, a drink spills on a rug there’s a panic and it’s off to the kitchen for a tea towel which is used to vigorously rub the stain into the rug. Often the next course of action is to cover up the stain by applying neat concentrated liquid dish-washing detergent creating a pile of soapy white bubbles.

There are many types of liquids that can spill in the household from paint to make-up to hot coffee, without doubt the most common type of liquid we spill on our rugs is a drink. Whist hot drinks are usually more difficult to tackle than cold drinks, some cold drinks have artificial colouring that can prove very difficult to remove and milk in particular if not treated correctly can leave a greasy residue and sour smell days later.

Whatever drink you spill on your rugs the first point of action should be to absorb as much liquid as possible, the most effective way to do this is to use kitchen roll or toilet tissue. The best way to absorb the liquid is to split the kitchen roll or tissue in individual sheets and lay them on the stain to absorb the liquid, discarding the wet sheet and repeating the process again and again until you can absorb no more liquid by simply laying the paper sheet on the stain area. Once you have the liquid from the top surface of the rugs pile you have to ascertain how deep the stain has sunk into the pile.

The next step really depends upon the type stain but in ninety percent of cases the best application would be to apply heavier pressure to the paper sheets to absorb as much liquid from the base of the pile as possible. Once you are satisfied that you have absorbed as much moisture as possible from the affected area you need to determine the level of discolouration and potential stickiness on the rugs surface pile.

What do I mean by stickiness? All drinks including alcohol are made up of water plus other ingredients, the main ingredient usually being a sugar or a sugar derivative, either way when the water evaporates from the liquid you are left with a sticky residue.

On minor stains I find that a plain baby wipe or a face wipe, the ones that don’t contain lanolin or moisturiser can be used to gently wipe any residue from the affected area. On more severe stains clean lukewarm water and a clean white cloth is what you need for the next stage. Soak the clean cloth in the water and gently dab it onto the affected area making sure that water is transferred to the stain. Then again apply kitchen roll or toilet tissue and laboriously absorb and repeat the process until the stain is removed. Only if the stain is persistent should you resort to detergent.

Assuming you don’t have a suitable foam type stain removal agent for rugs at hand, choosing the correct detergent from your household supplies in the kitchen cupboard is always a big issue. As I stated earlier the common choice is often washing up liquid. The big problem with this choice is it’s a highly concentrated detergent designed to remove grease from a ceramic surface which is smooth, therefore easy to rinse off the excess detergent residue. Your rugs and carpets are a fabric that will absorb detergent residue and over time if the residue is not fully removed it will start to harbour dirt particles creating a soiled patch. If you going to use a household use a fabric detergent, the washing machine powder you would use to clean your clothes.

On persistent rug stains you can mix your detergent with water to make a weak solution and gently dab the stained rug using the solution and a clean white cloth, then apply clean water and absorb with tissue to remove the detergent residue. Never vigorously rub the stained area it will only make things worse. Ensure that all residues of sugar and detergents are remove with clean water as these will attract dirt and appear as a soiled patch in coming weeks.

Buying rugs to sell at competitive prices

The vast majority of Internet rug dealers build their business on the back of stocks held by wholesalers and importers. That is to say, they do not invest in stock; instead they simply lift photos from the rugs supplier catalogue and offer them on their web site. When the customer orders rugs from the website the retailer must then order the rugs from the wholesaler or importer, wait for the rugs to be delivered to their premises, then make arrangements to deliver to the end user, the customer. Not only is this method of selling costly to the end user it can take at best ten days to two weeks to process and deliver an order.

Any importer of rugs will tell you that transportation of goods is a major expense which inevitably has to be paid for by the end user. Because there is no mass production of rugs in the United Kingdom most machine made Wilton rugs are imported from Belgium, the Middle East or Turkey while handmade rugs are imported from India, Pakistan and China where labour is considerably cheaper. As rugs are generally bulky the burden of delivery charges can be a relatively high proportion of the end product price. A typical internet rug retailer who is operating using wholesale or importers stocks must additionally carry the weight of the operating costs and profit margins of his suppler plus the delivery costs to his door and also to the end user.

As a sole internet trader Rug Zone follows the principals of giving the consumer a combination of low prices rugs and fast delivery. Stock is stored and controlled in the main warehouse in Sunderland for same working day dispatch on orders processed before 2pm. Bulk purchasing it the key to the success of Rug Zone operation as buying rugs direct from manufactured by the container means lower prices can be negotiated with suppliers. Delivery and transportation costs are kept to an absolute minimum as the rugs are delivered direct from the factory to warehouse cutting out any middle men.

Ordering rugs in larger quantities also means Rug Zone has more control over the finished product. At Rug Zone the research and development team strive to bring rugs that are a little more unique, by creating rugs with new and diverse designs, rugs in larger size, shape and colour variation and with different textures to their competitors.

When a customer orders rugs on the Rug Zone website they usually get next working day delivery, exclusive designs and lower prices for superior qualities. Rug Zone do not sell rugs as an add-on to carpets or other products, they are dedicated to the business of providing rugs at a competitive price. Genuine savings of 30% or more can usually be achieved on like for like rugs with rugzone.co.uk

The TV’s designer choice for rugs

Rugzone.co.uk is often the first stop for the interior designers of the ITV’s popular daytime TV show “The 60 Minute Makeover”. If you are unfamiliar with the show it is a lifestyle show where there are usually four rooms in a home completely redecorated and refurnished in 60 minutes, or two sessions of 30 minutes. It’s a tall order and often a pleasant surprise to the unsuspecting householder.

With such stringent time restraints you can imagine that rugs will be a popular option for designers to give a tired room a brand new look. As many of the rooms decorated have existing flooring, rugs make the ideal companions. The shows designers make excellent use of modern wallpapers, curtains and furnishing to create rooms with a totally modern and different look and the rugs on the floor along with pictures on the walls give the rooms that finishing touch.

By far the most popular style of rug used by the shows designers is Shaggy rugs or Shag pile rugs. They range form standard machine made shaggy rugs to hand tufted rugs, leather shaggy rugs produced with rough cut waste leather and new generation sparkling polyester shaggy rugs that are hand hooked or hand knotted by Indian Craftsmen.

In the conventional rug styles black is becoming increasingly popular with designers. Modern and transitional designs offer the designers a great median, often using them in conjunction with matching feature wallpaper to make stark contrasts against wood flooring and lighter furnishings.

In many rooms the designer will want to make a bold statement with a contemporary modern design and look either towards the wool and acrylic abstract handmade rugs or the ultra modern machine made rugs that use sharp coloured polypropylenes. On the odd occasion a room may be better suited to a traditional rug, and in many and again it is not uncommon for the designer to choose a traditional rug with a black theme.

Generally pattern and texture is the first thing the designer will look for, but in many cases there is another important element why RugZone.co.uk become the designer’s choice. Fast Delivery; Rug Zone are a dedicated Internet sales operation with literally thousands of rugs available for immediate dispatch. A rug ordered before 2pm in normally inspected, wrapped and dispatched for next working day delivery. This makes Rug Zone the perfect option when a designer is up against a deadline.

The show will end with a walk around by the surprised householder who has usually just popped out on a shopping trip or a day with the kids. As the presenter takes the householder from room to room she explains what the room was like and what has been done. It is usually the finishing touches that are the thing that draws the most attention from the householder, a few cushions here, a window blind, a picture or mirror hanging on the wall and of course a beautiful rug on the floor

What TV shows such as 60-minute makeover prove is accessorising a room doesn’t actually mean spending a fortune, with careful planning you can change the look of room without the expense of decorating or changing furniture. Simple accessories such as cushions and rugs can give a room a brand new look in under a minute.