An email from Catherine I'm looking to get an area rug for my living room in a 9' x 21' size. I'm looking for something in wool, but very simple, with no pattern (or something very, very subtle). Since I don't need anything fancy, I'm not even sure where to look. Any suggestions?
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9'x21' or 9'x12'? For 9'x21' I'd have to second the idea of getting a remnant bound. Going custom for that size would be much more expensive. If you want to cover that much space and don't want a plain carpet look, you could always try FLOR tiles. I use some as a runner in my hallway and they have held up pretty well.
Catherine, remnants are definitely the way to go. I'm in the Bay Area, so I don't know L.A. carpet stores. But I would just get out the phone book and call around to find out who has a large selection of wool remnants (lots of places have lots of nylon, not so many have lots of wool). To give you an idea of prices, I got four huge wool remnants, bound, for around $1200. Also, ask them to cut swatches so you can go home and check the color.
www.homedecorators.com
Why not use two or three smaller rugs? Cheaper and breaks up the space without being one huge void.
overstock! if you mean 9 x 12, my suggestion would be to look on overstock. i recently bought a 9 x 12 there and the total cost was $400 including free shipping to my door! of course you will need to have patience to go thru the hundreds of rugs that they have but i do remember that they had a large selection of all types of neutral rugs from persian style to modern. if you do chose the overstock route, my recommendation is to speak to a customer service rep, even a manager if you have to, call back if you get someone who can't answer your questions and who only gives you the hard sell. ask a lot of specific questions (make sure you get names and their employee number) because their restocking fees (if you have to return something) and the return postage (on something as heavy as a rug) can be very high. i was lucky enough to convince a manager that if the rug wasn't the color he and i agreed that it was from looking at the monitor that overstock would pay for the return postage and waive the restocking fee. luckily, it turned out to be exactly what i wanted!
I'm also considering going the FLOR route.
Are they okay on hardwood floors (meaning, will my landlord flip when I remove them)?
Will they hold up with the resident toddler running amok?
ChilangaMama, I didn't even adhere my FLOR tiles with the attached adhesive dots. I was going to, but then I noticed that they weren't going anywhere, even when my dog ran and slid into them. They have a rubber backing. Their site claims that they won't damage floors, but I can't speak from experience since I didn't adhere and remove them. I've also read that you can just adhere the FLOR tiles on the perimeter of your rug or even just the corners and the rest of the tiles will stay in place.
As far as the running-amok-toddler goes, if the little one spills/spits up/etc. on a FLOR tile, you can just pick that one up and wash it in the sink. They are easy to clean. I run my vacuum over them and the pile is short so it only takes a few seconds. If the tile is ruined, you can just replace that one. If I had a kid, I might go for a darker color - mixing several dark/bright colors in a patchwork pattern looks cute. The website has lots of great room shots and ideas although I think the paper catalog is better at showing adequate colors.
Thanks, Mags. I'll let you know if we end up going that route.
If it is good enough for the dog-running-amok it is probably good enough for the toddler ;-)
I would try Linoleum City on Santa Monica Blvd. in hollywood. They have a nice remnant selection and sisal too.
Hi Catherine,
I hope you've found your perfect rug! If you haven't, maybe we can help.
I run a small rug company in NJ, we manufacture two lines of wool area rugs hand woven from 100% wool. Since we control all our manufacturing we just introduced a custom rug service where we take your design, match your colors, and create a rug in any size up to 14' x 14'. We use over 100 colors and the process is really fun and easy. And it's only a 4 week production time.
For both the predesigned and the custom there is an "all in" square foot price, no setup fees, no surprises. Plus, it's really affordable. It's obviously going to cost more than a remnant or a machine made, but if you are looking for the "Perfect" rug you can get exactly what you want for $16.50 a square foot.
If you're interested let us know!
Suzanne Wolberg
wow@wowimports.us