Why is it so difficult to find a plain rug that isn’t a shag pile?

Imagine you are walking down your local High Street and you turn into the rug shop. You walk up to the rugs, either piled in the middle or hanging down the side and you wrestle with the heavy rugs to look through them. You are looking for a plain rug that doesn’t also have a shag pile? Keep looking. Look some more. Found one? No – and you won’t be alone. Plain rugs that are not also shag pile are extremely hard to find. Rug Zone has a large range of rugs to choose from – why not save yourself the hassle and try there first; you don’t even have to leave home!

In the Seventies the shaggy rug really took off and every home had one. They were mainly wool, many of the Floktaki type rugs and they shed their fibres everywhere. They might have started off in one room but it wasn’t long before the long strands were in every carpet, clinging to clothes and even embedded in the soles of shoes. Although they looked great, they were not too friendly towards the poor person who had to clean the house and they also had a tendency to go bald very quickly. Anyone with children knew where to look for lost toys – they were embedded in the shaggy rug. They were expensive, too, so not everyone could afford to replace them and so they lingered on, getting balder and flatter and more full of crumbs and Dinky toys until at last they were thrown out in exasperation. It was a good two decades and more before shaggy rugs came in out of the cold, but now they are everywhere.
Natural selection

Just as in the wild animals fill an ecological niche, so shaggy rugs have tended to do in the case of plain rugs. Because of their long pile, shaggy rugs don’t really suit a pattern, so they are by definition, plain. They are often manmade fibres too, so the range of colours available is mind blowing. Small wonder that ordinary plain rugs are getting hard to source – shaggy rugs can use textures and materials such as leather and suede to give a plain colour a more interesting touch without detracting from its classic simplicity.

All rugs bright and beautiful

Blistering bright and beautiful rugs in a Spectrum of multicoloured tones including blue, yellow red, green, orange, indigo and violet http://ow.ly/VA09d

Cut pile rugs and carpets, but what does cut pile actually mean?

Cut Pile Hand Tufted Rug

When talking about rugs and carpets we sometimes we assume that the consumer understands the simplest of jargon. While a term like “cut pile” is fairly obvious to a member of the trade it may not be to the average person off the street.

There are many methods of making rugs and carpets and most include some form of soft pile surface. A cut pile is the most common style of carpet and rug production because it’s nicer to feel. Saying that, a cut pile can be very deep or very short so the level of comfort and feel can be varied. We often use a soft straight yarn, but there are also many cut pile carpets and rugs that have more robust twisted textures that can feel quite hard.

The Cut Pile

We don’t really need to get into the the different ways a cut pile is achieved across the many manufacturing techniques. It is irrelevant what the pile surface is made of, be it wool, polypropylene, nylon or any other fibre the method is the same. The simplest way is to assume that the pile surface of all carpets and rugs are made from a continuous length of yarn. The yarn is inserted or woven to form a stable backing with pile surface. Because the yarn is continuous, the piles surface will be looped. Simply cutting the tips of the loops will give a cut pile.

The basic principle of a cut pile

The carpet or rug can go though other process to enhance the feel and look, but the basic method is to make the pile surface as a loop then cut the top of the loop to achieve the cut pile effect. Of course when it comes to jargon there are many styles of cut pile surfaces available, long casual shaggy pile, Deep plush soft Saxony piles, durable textured twist pile and elegant short velvet piles.

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Tired of upcycling and recycling? Let’s make ‘round-cycling’ the new trend

Whenever you turn on the TV these days, or so it seems, there is someone on there telling you how to save money on your food bills (it usually comes down simply to buying cheaper food, so let’s not go there) or how to turn your unwanted wardrobe into a darned fine kennel for a dog you haven’t got but might be buying any minute because you can afford one now, having taken to buying cheaper food. Well, upcycling and all the rest is all very well and fine but some of us just don’t have the time for making teapot stands out of broken china – how much broken china does the average household end up with in a week, anyway? So why not start a trend – let’s call it round-cycling.

See the full post at Blogspot.co.uk

Do all your visitors have wrinkled noses? How to freshen up your rugs

Does my house smell is something that most people worry about from time to time. In this day and age there isn’t much excuse for a smelly home because there are so many different products on the market to keep it smelling nice but most of them tend to mask rather than remove and prevention is very much better than cure. It is difficult to avoid cooking smells while the dinner is actually in the oven and indeed, the smell is a large part of the enjoyment of any meal so no one wants to get rid of it altogether. It is when it is still hanging around two days later the trouble begins and the problem is that smells linger in fabrics and most especially in carpeting and rugs. Buying cheaper rugs and carpets and replacing them is one option, but keeping them clean isn’t too difficult however it is important to treat some fibres with care.

Read the full article at blogspot

Who in their right mind would pick that colour?

It's all about rugs

Be honest, now, and admit it – you (like everyone else) have walked into someone’s house, looked at the rug on the floor and immediately thought ‘Who in their right mind would pick that colour?’. Whether it is a horrible clash, eye-poppingly bright or just seriously boring, colours don’t have the same effect on everyone. One person’s stylish accent colour is someone else’s colour nightmare and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are some colours that should never, ever be put together because although they may be lovely alone, together they are absolutely hideous.

Blue and Green

 

People will argue with this one, because of course blue and green are seen together all the time in nature. Somehow, though, in a decorating sense, they don’t go together because they are too alike, so it looks as though the two items in question should be the…

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Old and new can make a stylish and eclectic mix

Now, this isn’t another of those blogs about an eighteen year old marrying a ninety-five year old millionaire – it’s about how to mix and match different eras in your home and it will be a lot more successful than that marriage, that’s for sure! Lots of people decorate with very strict rules about what can be mixed with what and it can end up looking a bit sterile. After all, when they were ‘new’ and ‘newish’ Art Deco and Art Nouveau turned up on the same mantelpiece – people didn’t throw things away just because a brand new trend had surfaced, so there is no need to keep things apart now. When you have paid for a traditional rug, for instance, there is no need to change it because you have made the rest of the décor more trendy – the fact is, the two styles will get along just fine.

Read the full article at encove.blogspot.co.uk

Hair standing on end? Natural fibres can help cut static

What with central heating and a lot of man-made fibres in clothes and furnishings, lots of people these days suffer from static build-up, often causing painful discharge of sparks either from one person to another or from a person to an object, such as a metal bowl in the kitchen, a doorknob or light switch. If you are very unfortunate you will find you have an almost permanently statically charged cat, which makes for interesting times; it really makes them grumpy. There are various things you can do to prevent this, such as tumble drying with an anti-static sheet in the drum and wearing as much cotton as you can, but one thing that will make a big difference is using natural rugs on your floors. Natural fibred hardly ever hold a static charge and you will be much more comfortable if you use wool rugs or ones made of bamboo or coir as much as possible.

read the full article at encove.blogspot.co.uk

Size isn’t everything – shape matters too

When you think about a new rug for a room, probably the first thing you do is reach for a tape measure. Obviously, the rug has to fit the space – there is nothing worse than buying a large rug and then finding you can’t open the door – but you should also consider the shape as well, because using a round rug can really give a floor space some definition. Most rooms, perhaps obviously, are square or rectangular and this is reinforced by how we place the furniture – normally around the walls or opposite other items. Think two sofas facing or a couple of bookcases and chairs around the wall. If you introduce a round rug into this scenario, it gives a bit of fluidity and makes the whole area look less formal. 

Read the full article at the Rug Zone Blog 

Don’t forget the bedroom when redecorating

It depends, but most people tend to decorate somewhere in the house at least once a year. There is something about the lengthening days of spring that make us want to have a bit of a spruce up in the house and the areas most often decorated are the hall, the sitting room and the kitchen. After all, they are the areas that most visitors see and where most people spend a great deal of time. The problem is that there is a limit on how much decorating you can do – either the money or the inclination runs out and yet again the upstairs has been forgotten and looks even dingier than it did when the same thing happened the year before and even possibly the year before that. So, once again, the poor old bedroom loses out.

red the full article at encove.blogspot.com