Oriental Rug Salon specializes in the hand-washing, restoration, and repair of Oriental, Persian, Turkish, wool and silk area rugs. We do not clean carpets, or upholstery, or grout and tile – our specialty is rugs. Our professional, experienced and certified rug cleaning professionals dedicate all of their resources to providing the most up-to-date solutions to your rug cleaning needs.  Our customers understand and appreciate our hands-on approach to the cleaning and restoration of their cherished area rugs, and we are sure you will too! We love rug cleaning We see them in all shapes and sizes, from all parts of the world, and in all states of wear and condition. Rug cleaning is our livelihood, and you can tell we LOVE our job. Oriental Rug Salon blends traditional hand washing [...]

There are many cleaners out there that claim to be experts in cleaning carpet, tile or upholstery cleaning but only the companies that have certified carpet cleaning technicians are the ones that can back up that claim. It would be a bad idea to hire a driver without a driver’s license or a dentist who isn’t licensed. It’s also a bad idea to hire a carpet cleaning company whose technicians aren’t certified cleaning specialists. Non-Certified companies probably aren’t IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certified) certified, may not carry liability insurance in case something goes wrong in your home and may employ technicians that are more salesperson than cleaning expert. Worse yet, many carpet cleaning companies do not carry Workers Compensation insurance in case one of their employees gets [...]

Weaving Oriental Rugs – A Labor of Love When they say it takes a village, in terms of weaving oriental rugs, the statement is literal. From start to finish, the production of a beautiful hand-woven area rug is very labor intensive.  A quality hand-woven 8X10 wool area rug could take as little as eight months to as long as eighteen months to weave, depending on knot count and other variables.  As a comparison, a machine-made rug could take as little as a couple of hours. To help our readers appreciate what goes into making an “Oriental or Persian” rug, consider the following from a major supplier/exporter of wool rugs in India: Once the wool has been sheared from the sheep - Initial sorting of the raw wool takes 50-60 workers. [...]

Oriental Rug Salon is experienced in the cleaning, restoration and repair of all Oriental, Persian, decorative and contemporary carpets and rugs. We offer a professional, specialist, hand cleaning service of all your Oriental rugs, and our highly-trained craftsmen are skilled with silk, wool, cotton and other textile carpets and have a wealth of experience. Our process is a full submersion cold water cleaning, using soft brushes and natural soaps. Our hand wash process usually takes seven to ten days and provides an excellent result. One of the most significant pleasures of cleaning Chinese & Oriental carpets, Persian rugs, Turkish carpets, Kilims, vintage & antique rugs, contemporary styles and runners is seeing the colors come back to life while ensuring the textile will last for many more generations. Oriental Rug Salon [...]

Recently we were contacted by a frantic rug owner who advised that her antique Heriz Persian rug was “ruined” by a carpet cleaner she hired to clean her wall-to-wall carpeting. As the technician was in her home, he asked if she would like her area rug “cleaned.”  She asked if they had experience with area rugs because she heard they should be cleaned in a specialty shop and he told her, “we clean hundreds of them annually, not a problem.”  Believing the carpet cleaning technician knew what he was doing, she agrees to allow him to proceed. Having other things to do in her house, she returned to her office, and approximately twenty minutes later the technician advised he was finished and collected his invoice.  She even tipped him twenty [...]

16th-century Persian Kerman carpet ( 8' 9" × 6' 5" ) pictured above - known as The Clark Sickle-Leaf Vase Carpet - sold for more than $33 (USD) million at Sotheby's, New York. Despite the city of Kerman being located in one of the poorest provinces of Iran, it has been producing fine Persian rugs and carpets since the sixteenth century. Kerman is a city and province in south-central Iran. With its 60,000 inhabitants and surrounding villages, it is one of the major rug producing areas of Iran. The dyes of Kerman are the most varied and imaginative. The dying process is done while the wool is still in the flock, before spinning, allowing for more uniformity of color. The dyers of Kerman are renowned for their skill in producing light [...]

Rug bleeds due to improper cleaning and no padding.  The stain is permanent. If your home features area rugs, such as Persian or Oriental rugs, and regular wall-to-wall carpet as floor coverings, be sure never to clean your area rugs like you would wall-to-wall carpeting. Here’s why: Most wall-to-wall carpet in your home is manufactured by a machine using a synthetic material such as nylon. The carpet’s primary components are a face fiber held in place with latex adhesive and a plastic backing material. Most quality Oriental area rugs are hand-knotted using natural fibers such as wool, silk or cotton and these rugs are held in place by carefully constructed “knots.”  Many Oriental rugs also contain vegetable dyes that will “run” or migrate if cleaned with hot water or exposed [...]

WHEN IT COMES TO THE HAND WASHING OF ORIENTAL RUGS, WE ARE THE EXPERTS YOU CAN TRUST. Washing a rug by hand is a process, which if done correctly, can restore your rug or carpet close to its former glory. Hand washing is an art form, not a mechanical process, and should only be performed by experts who know how to avoid damaging your precious textile. At Oriental Rug Salon we have the experience and certification to ensure your valuable area rug is cleaned the way it should be and that is by hand under the watchful eye of our rug master.  Our hands-on approach to cleaning ensures your area rug is cleaned professionally and with the utmost care. Each area rug is thoroughly inspected, and if necessary, the colors [...]

To the untrained eye, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a hand knotted and a machine-made rug, but there are things to look out for and ways to find out how your rug was constructed. Not only is it an important factor when purchasing an area rug that you know how it is made, but the construction also dictates how to best clean and maintain your newly acquired textile. As the “cleaner of choice” to many rug collectors, interior designers, as well as lovers of “Oriental” rugs, we have seen our share of rugs coming to the shop that the owners “thought” were genuine hand-knotted rugs (and they paid good money for them).  More than a few customers have been disappointed when we had to tell them [...]

When it comes to Oriental, Persian, Chinese, wool and silk area rugs, their history seems steeped in mysteries of the East.  It can start with a rug retailer giving a “little story” about the rug to enhance the sale.  Or just wrong information which is repeated so many times it takes on a life of its own. So like Myth Busters on television let’s bust a few rug myths. Rug Myth Number One Oriental rugs are identified only by design.  FALSE.  The design is just one component used to identify hand-knotted rugs and their value.  Construction, including the type of knots, signatures, having a firm grasp of “Oriental” history, the age of the textile, origin, and experience are the best methods to identify all rugs. Rug Myth Number Two All [...]