Wool area rug bled by an inexperienced carpet cleaner. Many people spend years searching before finding just the right Oriental area rug to fit their home.  When it’s time to clean their beautiful textile, in many instances, they are playing a “cat and mouse game” to select the right Oriental rug cleaning company who will care for their area rug without using harsh chemicals and whose technicians are experienced in area rug cleaning. We’ve all heard the horror stories of carpet cleaning companies and rug cleaning plants ruining a treasured area rug because they simply didn’t have the experience or certification to care for expensive textiles. Valuable, handmade rugs should only be cleaned as needed, by hand, and it’s best to have a professional do the job. A rug can [...]

Iranian Tabriz Rug With Pet Urine BEFORE and AFTER The above wool area rug was brought to our shop by a client whose pet had an accident on her fifty-year-old rug.  To make matters worse, our client used a bathroom cleaner and a scrub brush in an attempt to remove the damage caused by her pet.  In essence, our client made things worse by distorting the wool fibers of the rug and causing the stain to set. In the bottom picture, you can see what we were able to do to correct the client's misfortune. The area rug was dusted using a Rug Badger to loosen all deep set soiling from the rug foundation that a vacuum cleaner cannot reach.  We then used specialized spotting agents with live enzymes, completely [...]

Many of today’s vacuum cleaners may be too aggressive for wool and silk area rug cleaning because of attached beater bars. Our recommendation for soil removal from your beautiful wool or silk area rug is to use a broom and sweep the rug from left to right (not end-to-end where the fringe is usually located).  Once the area rug has been swept, follow up with a vacuuming by either turning the beater bars off or raising the vacuum cleaner head as high as it will go.  Vacuum the entire rug and be careful to stay away from the fringe areas. Once a year you should take your area rug outside sweep and vacuum the underside and top of the rug to help dislodge embedded dirt, sand and other particulates that [...]

We're often asked, how you can tell a good area rug from a not so good one? If you can see the same design on the back as on the front, that means the rug is more than likely woven. Buy that.  If you cannot see the same design on the back of the rug as you can the front, that rug is “tufted” and is not the same quality as a handwoven one. Wool is the best as it is practically indestructible and sustainable. Hand-woven is the most valuable. It’s a piece of the weaver’s soul and many, many hours, months or years were put into making the rug.  There are also machine-woven rugs made by Karastan that are industry recognized as quality manufacturing however they are not hand [...]

Oriental, wool and silk area rug cleaning experts throughout SW Florida You’ve invited guests and family over for the holidays, prepared a wonderful dinner of turkey, gravy, and ham and during dinner, a plate is spilled on your beautiful Oriental rug. What do you do? First, don’t panic.  Immediately use a spoon to remove as much of the spill as possible Blot the area with a paper towel Prepare one teaspoon of a neutral detergent such as “Woolite” with ½ pint of warm water Apply the detergent solution to the spill, massage with your finger, allow to dwell for about three minutes and then blot, do not scrub. If staining remains use one teaspoon of household ammonia to one cup of warm water.  Mix the solution and test on an [...]

Machine Washing Area Rugs - A BIG No-No! Some area rug cleaners in SW Florida use industrial style washing machines to “clean” precious wool and silk area rugs. This type of cleaning is called “batch style” because multiple area rugs can be gang-washed at the same time.  This type of cleaning is designed to increase the rug cleaning plants efficiency which ultimately adds more profits because little skill is required and they can clean multiple rugs at the same time. Batch Machine washing, in our opinion, is best left for car washes and here’s why: Your area rugs are thrown in a tank with other people’s rugs.  What if your area rug did not contain pet urine but one of the other area rugs did?  Sure, the users of production machine [...]

SW Florida's Choice For Oriental Rug Cleaning And Repairs Last week a customer contacted us to inspect and possibly repair a 90+-year-old Persian Tabriz. What we saw when the rug came to our shop was horrific. This client had allowed a local dry cleaning company to clean her antique wool area rug and what they did to it was an absolute crime. The first mistake they made was to use an improper cleaning solution and rogue technique that ran the colors of the rug. They then proceeded to use a carpet cleaning wand, similar to the one used by companies such as Number One Carpet Cleaning, to extract the water and literally destroy her rare Tabriz by ripping the fringe from the rug! What could she have done to [...]

Hand-knotted rugs are beautiful and designed to last a lifetime.  To keep them in tip-top shape, here are some “rules of the road” to follow to ensure they’ll last for generations. Oriental Rug Salon is SW Florida’s largest and most experienced Oriental, wool and silk area rug cleaning and repair facility.  We clean and repair thousands of rugs annually and following is a list of “do’s and don’ts” to protect your area rug and ensure it outlasts you. Rugs Fade in Sunlight. Be Careful! Sunlight can be the “kiss of death” for many hand-knotted rugs. After inspecting thousands of area rugs in many homes and in our shop over the years, we have seen beautiful wool and silk area rugs permanently faded due to prolonged sunlight exposure through windows and [...]

Tree of Life Design As it is documented in the Tree of Life Persian rugs, legend has it that a cypress tree planted by request of a Zoroastrian Prophet, this tree grew to be so big that 10,000 sheep could use it for shade and thousands of birds lived within the branches. When the neighboring King heard of this massive tree he ordered it cut down and brought to him. Many people warned against this action. Ignored these warnings, the King had the felled cypress tree transported via 1200 camels to his palace. Ironically he never did lay eyes upon the tree as he was killed before it reached the palace. The Tree of Life, as it is symbolized in Persian rugs represents the connection between earth and the environment [...]

Oriental Rug Cleaning Naples | Bonita Springs | Fort Myers | Cape Coral Oriental Rug Salon is SW Florida’s largest and most experienced Oriental rug cleaning and repair facility.  Our cleaning efforts are performed by hand under the watchful eye of a rug master in a controlled rug cleaning facility.  We do not use automated rug cleaning equipment as we feel the efforts of machines are inferior to hand washing as well as impersonal and machine washing is best left to car washes.  With a dedicated rug master on staff, you can rest assured your wool, silk or synthetic area rugs receive the best clean possible. The difference between Oriental Rug Salon and other “rug cleaners” is the entire experience.  From the moment you contact our company for area rug [...]