Rug rats

Ten Thousand Villages has a traveling rug (no, not flying carpets) event. This weekend is the yearly event for the Houston area. For those who might not know, Ten Thousand Villages supports fair trade crafts from around the world. The Houston store in The Rice Village (on Rice Blvd, west of the British Isles store) will have the rugs through Monday, March 28 (open 10-6). They are also open 12-6 on Sunday.

We had never been to the rug event before, but straggled by there on Saturday between community garden and errands when we realized it was this weekend (so, yes, we were very stylish with our hat hair; sweaty, dirty clothes; and starvation). The folks traveling from Pennsylvania with the rugs were very gracious and gave us a mini-lesson about rugs and proceeded to show us the stack of rugs in the 4.5 ft x 7 ft range, which they said is the most versatile size.

Roy liked one of the rugs, and I liked the last rug in the stack, so they removed those two from the stack so that we could see the entire rug. We were admiring them and discussing the relative merits of each, when one of the Houston TTV volunteers asked if we knew about the rug check-out program. No, we did not. It turns out that you can check out rugs and take them home to see how they look in your own home! (After leaving credit card on file, of course.)

We decided to take both of those rugs, each 800 knots per square inch, as well as a slightly smaller rug, 4 ft x 6 ft, with 500 knots per square inch, home to the new house to see how they looked.

As it turns out, both of the larger rugs go smashingly with both the oak floors in the Music Hall (formerly known as the combined living/dining room) and the tile floor in the Dining Room/Den (formerly known as the den). So we'd be able to use both rugs in the Music Hall if we wanted to, or move one or the other of them to the Dining Room.

The smaller rug is indeed a great size for a bedroom (at the foot of the bed), but we're not really in the market yet for such an accessory. Also, while I really liked the design of that rug, Roy was less enthused. It's interesting what grabs each of us and what repels each of us. :)

Later in the evening, after dark, we perused the online inventory of rugs. You can, too. We are looking pretty much only at the Pak-Persians, in either the 500-knot count (16/16) or the 800-knot count (20/20). Online, we found some of the square rugs and the circular rugs just incredible.

Our salesman, Will, explained how to care for these rugs - pretty much just vacuum them (not the fringe, of course) and then every 3 years or so if they are dirty, take them out to the driveway and hose them down! The rugs are primarily wool, though some have some silk threads in them (and those are more expensive, but gorgeous). The dyes are colorfast, and the rugs have already been washed and scrubbed in Pakistan, prior to being shipped to the US. Ernie, the manager of the PA store, was at the Houston store, and he shared how he has routinely taken a Hoover Steam Vac to his rugs as he has a 10-lb, 12-yr-old dog who either has accidents or expresses his displeasure on the rugs in his home on an on-going basis.

The rugs' life expectancy varies with the type of rug (which is defined by several factors, I believe the 3 notable ones are the rug's base material, the knot-count, and possibly whether the yarns are machine-woven or hand-spun). The Persians we are looking at should last about 120 years. In other words, we'll want to put them in our wills!