Explanations for Wide Price Differences in Rugs/Education about Quality?

We are working on selecting items (furniture, rugs, beds) for our downsizing and upcoming move to retirement community. I've been focused on sofa(s) for a long time and am turning attention to learning more about and selecting area rugs. Major purchase will be area rug for living room, to go over hardwoods.

I'm totally confused about rug pricing - and what you get for the money. We dropped into one store, with no knowledge of the rugs they sold. Rugs were beautiful and felt great. I glanced at several price tags and they were in the $20,000-40,000 range. Had to leave pretty quickly! We've continued shopping and seen rugs for $500, $1000, $5000 and up. Honestly, I can't distinguish anything about quality.

Any advice? We're looking for something with subtle pattern, not oriental type styling, but a little more modern type feel.

There can be a wide disparity on rug prices, depending on material content, fineness of materials and quality of the build, dyes used in the rug and knots per inch. At a very basic level flip the rug over and look at the back side, then count the knots per inch and note the tightness of the weave. More Knots = More costly.

One thing you always want to do is convert a rug size to square feet and think in terms of price per sq. foot. So if an 8 x 10 is 80 s.f. and if the rug is priced at $ 5,000 then the s.f. price is $ 62.50 a s.f., which is about average for a nice, well-made wool rug of vegetable dyes that is done by hand. If you see the same rug from the same importer in a 10 x 14 and he's asking $ 10,000 for it, then you know the s.f. price is $ 71.24 a s.f, and they've overpriced the larger one, it should be $ 8,750. This happens a LOT in the rug business, which is why when I go to buy rugs I always take a calculator or use the one in my iPhone, etc. Rug merchants price rugs by what they think they can get the consumer to pay for them, not by the square foot. If you do your conversions, it puts you in a better spot for negotiating on the buy of one you like. They don't expect customers do to that, and it really throws them off <grin>...but they know real quick you're an experienced rug buyer when you do.

Rug buying is a black art and takes years of education and study to know a good rug from a bad one, and subsequent values. It won't be something you pick up quickly. But trust your eyes and sense of touch. It doesn't help that rug merchants make used car salesmen look like choir boys, either. Good luck!

Duane - I've put my calculator in my pocket!

Thanks for guiding me toward calculations of price per square foot. I've never thought of it like that before, but makes absolute sense.

I'm learning the rug market is a totally different type of business. I've been browsing websites of some local dealers. I've seen they have trememdous markdowns ($6000 to $500) on a number of products. Does that tell me anything? Can I read anything into this?

One followup - when you say to trust my sense of touch, what does that mean? I've run my hand across some rugs and they feel great. Does that mean they will wear better over time?

Yes, buy all the rugs by the square foot. What frequently happens is that a rug importer will buy a large lot of rugs and he's paying the distributor a price per square foot for them. The container gets here and they open it up. Some rugs look nicer than others and they think they can get more for them, so they put a much larger price tag on those. But the cost is really the same to them, so its added margin of they can get it. And to be quite honest about it, some rugs really DO look a lot better and I'm willing to pay a little more for them. But not too much more.....The calculator lets you see how much more.

Rugs are nearly impossible to buy on the internet unless you're not too fussy or not too skilled in rug sense. I've tried it, and wound up with more rats than treasure. Photos can easily be tweaked to make rugs more vibrant in a photo than in real life and they can get them to lay nice and flat in a photo - then the real thing comes in and the warp or weft is skewed and the rug has a tight twist to it. I only buy rugs for my store in person and normally go to a big warehouse operation and select about thirty to mark and look at from several thousand, then have them lay them all out flat on the warehouse floor in good lighting. From the thirty I'll whittle them down to fifteen, the really start looking at them hard, and wind up coming back to the store with seven or eight. Its fun, and exhausting at the same time.

Some wool is very coarse, and its not really a longevity issue as much a luxury parameter. Most all rugs that are 100 % wool will easily outlast anyone reading this forum in longevity!

Great thread.

Once my sectional arrives, I will be in a similar position. I was unaware that rugs were so expensive.

Duane, do you base the size of the rug on the size of the sectional/sofa's, or solely on the size of the room? Should the rug go under the sofa's or in front of them?

I'd wait until the piece is in the room at this point, and it depends on room size and shape. I tend to not buy expensive rugs to put piece on top of, as what's the point? They are covered by the upholstery..so I buy then to start in front of the furniture and fill the space (dining room rugs excepted, of course). You're going to find that with the gentle curves on the Sundance Sectional, a rectangular rug looks a bit odd in front of it. Do-able, but it will accentuate the front curve line of the sectional. There are custom rug makers that will sculpt the rug to fit the curve profile, and those are pretty sharp looking.

Not all rugs are that costly, I'm speaking mostly of handmade orientals and the like.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drcollie

I'd wait until the piece is in the room at this point, and it depends on room size and shape. I tend to not buy expensive rugs to put piece on top of, as what's the point? They are covered by the upholstery..so I buy then to start in front of the furniture and fill the space (dining room rugs excepted, of course). You're going to find that with the gentle curves on the Sundance Sectional, a rectangular rug looks a bit odd in front of it. Do-able, but it will accentuate the front curve line of the sectional. There are custom rug makers that will sculpt the rug to fit the curve profile, and those are pretty sharp looking.

Not all rugs are that costly, I'm speaking mostly of handmade orientals and the like.

---

Thanks for your input. I guess I will wait, and then maybe you can help me figure something out..

I don't even want to stress myself out with thinking about rugs now. I will wait 2 more months before that begins. hah

You want to see disparities in rug pricing? Take a trip to Istanbul and visit one of the larger rug dealers around Taxsim. Your eyes will pop out of your head when you find out what they are charging, but - know what? - it really is the best in the world.

Sometimes, quality just costs. :)

If you know the brand, you're reasonably safe ordering a rug online. Another factor is whether you're buying a rug that you intend to keep for decades, or if you're getting something for a play area or heavy traffic area where the rug may have a considerably shorter life. Hand hooked rugs cost a lot more than machine hooked, for obvious reasons, but I would want to see an example of the more expensive rug in person to assess whether it's worth the difference in price.

Something that can make pretty much any rug feel nicer under foot, of course, is a good pad.

Getting off the subject of rugs but sticking with the original heading of "wide price differences," a large, well known fabric mill recently sent me a list of their newest fabrics along with a price list. When I called to ask if they were out of their minds I was told that this was the "retail" price list, the price at which they sold to ordinary consumers contacting them on their website. Licensed interior designers paid 50% off the retail price and manufacturers like me paid 50% off the interior designers' prices.

Last year one of the mills that I buy from discontinued a fabric (without any warning) that I needed for a large customer order. The customer would not accept any substitutions. The only place that I could find this fabric was in a large Florida retail fabric store. This was a fabric that I had been paying $10/yd. for. The retailer gave me a "special" wholesaler's discount of $30/yd. and would not budge off that by a penny even when informed that I knew exactly how much he had actually paid for it. I can't imagine what the price would have been without my "discount." (Yes, I bought the fabric so that I could complete my order.)

When I hear about people talking about $100/yd. fabrics that they bought, it always makes me wonder, "Which price list did they buy from?"

Jeff Frank
Simplicity Sofas

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drcollie

I'd wait until the piece is in the room at this point, and it depends on room size and shape. I tend to not buy expensive rugs to put piece on top of, as what's the point? They are covered by the upholstery..so I buy then to start in front of the furniture and fill the space (dining room rugs excepted, of course). You're going to find that with the gentle curves on the Sundance Sectional, a rectangular rug looks a bit odd in front of it. Do-able, but it will accentuate the front curve line of the sectional. There are custom rug makers that will sculpt the rug to fit the curve profile, and those are pretty sharp looking.

Not all rugs are that costly, I'm speaking mostly of handmade orientals and the like.

---

Great to know that you can have the rug perfectly fit the curve profile of the sectional. I have decided not to add a rug right after revamping my summer house because I really didn't find anything that would look good next to my big corner couch.

Hey Jeff from Simplicity Sofas. I just read your thread about fabric, and have picked out two fabrics for pillows. Both are silk blends, and about $100/yd.

I've put off buying them, in the hopes I can find them for cheaper. Any suggestions?

I've looked online, but the lowest price is $90/yd.

Seems excessive to me, when I just bought some silk material for drapes from Joann Fabric for about $16/yd (60% off sale on special order fabrics).

The samples of the $100/yd material are very nice, but not $100/yd nice.

I've never seen any REAL silk blends at anywhere close to $ 16 a yard, Amanda. Sometimes you get lucky and find a closeout bolt of fabric, but $ 90 to $ 100 a yard for genuine silk content is really just about the norm.

Thanks Duane. Seems like a lot, but the fabric is really beautiful and just what I want. I'll probably wait for the CFA's before ordering it, but I know fabrics get discontinued a lot so I should probably get it soon. I just keep hoping to find it for less, but good to know the $90-$100/yd is not unusual for a silk blend. :)

Pillows take very little yardage, and just do one side in the silk blend. You can easily cover two 18" pillows on the face side and the welt in 1 yard so get what you like!

That's what I was thinking, too! :) And since I sew, I should be able to make them myself. If I can make silk drapes, pillows should be easy.