How to Repair an Oriental Rug | At Home With P. Allen Smith
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Transcript:
I wanna show this great, old Oriental rug that I found at an estate sale, recently.
It was marked $2,000, and I got it for, I'm embarrassed to say, $400. And I just love
the colors in it. And I debated whether to get it or not because I wasn't sure about
the size and there was a hole in it. There's a hole right here, but we'll come back to
that in just a minute. There's some wear on the rug, but I kinda like that -- it has a
wonderful sort of patina to it. It can add some soulfulness to a room. Now, you can use
an Oriental rug to be the full rug for a room. Those are really expensive and hard to come
by, particularly if you have a large room. So what I like to do is use an Oriental rug
over another rug. You can see here, I have a room-size rug that's in sisal, a natural
fiber. And what I'd like to do is lay this colorful, old Oriental rug over it in a certain
area. Let me show you what I mean: For instance, this rug is 6 1/2 by 16 1/2 feet. So if I
measure it out, the rug will come about middle way here, up to this point, under the sofa,
and over here, and it will define this sitting area that's focused on the fireplace. You
see, I find that layering a rug on another rug is a great look and a good use for these
Oriental rugs, particularly if you want a seasonal change in a room. I don't plan to
keep this rug in here throughout the year. I wanna use it in the fall and winter. It'll
add a certain warmth both in terms of its color and the fact that's a lovely wool rug.
Now if you find a rug like this, there are a couple things you'll wanna keep in mind:
Since I was able to buy this at such a great price, I have enough room in my budget, if
you will, to have this rug cleaned. And I can also have it repaired. But both of these
things need to be down by an expert. I'm David Martinous, Martinous Oriental Rug Company.
Our family has been in this business since 1923. We introduced professional rug cleaning
to the state of Arkansas, and of course, we're dealers in handmade Oriental rugs from around
the world. I just had a nice rug brought in by Allen. It's a Herati. It needs a little
bit of attention. It's got a place where we need to patch it, clean it, and spruce it
up a little bit. What Robert is doing here right now, he's cutting this out and we're
gonna plug this in. A lot of times, instead of weaving a rug, we have a lot of scrapes
and so we can plug it and make it look real good. So that's what he's gonna be doing.
We've got a couple pieces here. He'll put a patch on the back to keep it in place, and
it will look real well when he's finished. Okay, in this case, what he's gonna do, he's
gonna do something a little bit different. Instead of using this, it's gonna be a little
bit off on the pattern, he put this solid piece in, and he'll put a patch on the back,
glue that in, make it stable, and then he'll take his color kit and he'll color this and
blend this in with this so you won't even notice that a patch is even there. Okay, now
what we've got here is: This rug has been submerged. It's been in the pit for about
24 hours. With animal stains and odors. We're getting ready to pull it out. We're gonna
squeegee all the water out. It's gonna slide into our dry room. We're gonna vacuum this
pull with the water out, pull it up to dry. And after it's finished, we do a shampoo wash
and rinse, and then we check the rug and make sure that all the odor's out and all the stain's
out.
It was marked $2,000, and I got it for, I'm embarrassed to say, $400. And I just love
the colors in it. And I debated whether to get it or not because I wasn't sure about
the size and there was a hole in it. There's a hole right here, but we'll come back to
that in just a minute. There's some wear on the rug, but I kinda like that -- it has a
wonderful sort of patina to it. It can add some soulfulness to a room. Now, you can use
an Oriental rug to be the full rug for a room. Those are really expensive and hard to come
by, particularly if you have a large room. So what I like to do is use an Oriental rug
over another rug. You can see here, I have a room-size rug that's in sisal, a natural
fiber. And what I'd like to do is lay this colorful, old Oriental rug over it in a certain
area. Let me show you what I mean: For instance, this rug is 6 1/2 by 16 1/2 feet. So if I
measure it out, the rug will come about middle way here, up to this point, under the sofa,
and over here, and it will define this sitting area that's focused on the fireplace. You
see, I find that layering a rug on another rug is a great look and a good use for these
Oriental rugs, particularly if you want a seasonal change in a room. I don't plan to
keep this rug in here throughout the year. I wanna use it in the fall and winter. It'll
add a certain warmth both in terms of its color and the fact that's a lovely wool rug.
Now if you find a rug like this, there are a couple things you'll wanna keep in mind:
Since I was able to buy this at such a great price, I have enough room in my budget, if
you will, to have this rug cleaned. And I can also have it repaired. But both of these
things need to be down by an expert. I'm David Martinous, Martinous Oriental Rug Company.
Our family has been in this business since 1923. We introduced professional rug cleaning
to the state of Arkansas, and of course, we're dealers in handmade Oriental rugs from around
the world. I just had a nice rug brought in by Allen. It's a Herati. It needs a little
bit of attention. It's got a place where we need to patch it, clean it, and spruce it
up a little bit. What Robert is doing here right now, he's cutting this out and we're
gonna plug this in. A lot of times, instead of weaving a rug, we have a lot of scrapes
and so we can plug it and make it look real good. So that's what he's gonna be doing.
We've got a couple pieces here. He'll put a patch on the back to keep it in place, and
it will look real well when he's finished. Okay, in this case, what he's gonna do, he's
gonna do something a little bit different. Instead of using this, it's gonna be a little
bit off on the pattern, he put this solid piece in, and he'll put a patch on the back,
glue that in, make it stable, and then he'll take his color kit and he'll color this and
blend this in with this so you won't even notice that a patch is even there. Okay, now
what we've got here is: This rug has been submerged. It's been in the pit for about
24 hours. With animal stains and odors. We're getting ready to pull it out. We're gonna
squeegee all the water out. It's gonna slide into our dry room. We're gonna vacuum this
pull with the water out, pull it up to dry. And after it's finished, we do a shampoo wash
and rinse, and then we check the rug and make sure that all the odor's out and all the stain's
out.