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Just thought I would pass along a good find for us. Having hardwood in the kitchen of our new house, we wanted rugs between the island and cabinets. We found Colonial Braided rugs and ordered 3. The quality is superb and there is no additional charger for made-to-order dimensions; which was perfect for our application. There are many different braiding style and color choices. All-in-all, a really great find -- a lot like this forum!! -Mike
There are two types of braided rugs on the market. You have yarn over a paper core for inexpensive ones such as Colonial Braided / Capel, and then you have true cloth braids such at the ones from Thorndike Mills. The yarn wrapped over paper have a fairly short lifespan, the material is essentially man-made strings and abrades away with use. You cannot wash them as it will disintegrate the paper core, so they are use and throw away. A true cloth braid such as the better rugs from Thorndike will cost considerably more but will last a lifetime and can be cleaned. Just make sure to keep the rug sewn up if a thread breaks. Once they start to come apart from a broken thread you have to fix it or the entire rug will unravel. If you really like quality rugs and plan to use them for some time the true cloth with a high wool content is the way to go.
And this the reason why I've found this forum so enlightening. Thanks Dwayne!Quote:
Originally Posted by drcollie
As retired seasoned citizens, a "lifetime" has a drinking-glass less-than-1/2-filled meaning. My guess/hope is that the Colonial Rugs in our case, will last as long as we need them. But if we were young -- say, in our 40's ;-) -- we would probably be considering alternatives such as you mentioned -- i.e. Thorndike et al.
Dwayne, we just had a visitor at the house. She saw our Colonial rugs and because of the size and perfect fit, she asked us where we got them. I told her, but that got me to thinking about the lack of cleaning ability. Thus, I went to Colonial’s FAQ page (https://colonialrug.com/pages/faqs) and found the the following re cleaning:
- "If it is a rug that we made you may put smaller rugs in your washing machine on gentle cycle, cold water, and a tide pod.” “Lay flat to dry.” “Larger rugs may be professionally cleaned, steamed cleaned or on a sunny day you may take your rug outside, lay flay in your driveway and hose it down." "An instruction sheet will be inside your rug package that goes in to more cleaning detail."
- "If it is a rug manufactured by another company, you may want to contact them first before putting in the washing machine." "Ask them what the fiber content is, will the coloring hold up to being washed without fading and what material is used for the core.” “Rugs with a filler core or other textile byproduct cannot be saturated in water as the core will draw up." "If this happens then your rug will never lay flat again."
This confirms your comments about the cores used by other manufacturers. But because Colonial's can be put in the washing machine or hosed off outside, that must not be the case for them.
In fact, when we ordered the rugs, I checked material content and saw polypropylene. Upon seeing that, my experience with a wall-to-wall Berber carpet made of the same material, suggested that wear, staining and a subsequent cleaning wouldn't be a problem. This was because, we spilled almost a full liter of grape soda on the Berber made of polypropylene and managed to completely remove the grape stain. We soaked it with a spray solution of "OxiClean" and removed it with a hand-held Bissell carpet cleaner. Of course, this took many application and suction removal sequences. But in the end I was amazed that we salvaged the carpet. Additionally, after 20-years use (when we sold the house to our son), the polypropylene Berber in our walk-out-basement (other than for the grape spill) was never cleaned and it looked great, as it still does today.
I would assume and hope that Colonial’s FAQ's regarding cleaning are accurate. If so, we should be ok. However, as you mentioned, we will watch for broken threads and sew/repair them, so the “entire rug”….”doesn’t unravel”. Cheers…
I would never put any braided run into a washing machine, it's too hard on it and will break the stitches that hold the braids and sewing those up is a real PITA as you have to do it by hand. Just wait for a nice day, take it outside and scrub it with some liquid tide and rinse. Same way you clean an oriental carpet.
Easy to see if you have a paper core, just take a pen or pencil and push the yarn to one side on a braid and look inside.
At the moment we are in search of some rugs too but we don't want classic braided ones. Actually, what we found attractive are antique large rugs which we saw in DorisLeslieBlau gallery. We were amazed by Persian and Indian rugs and we want them so badly. Although, one thing hold us back from buying. We think it's gonna be difficult to maintain it. It's an antique thing after all. What's your take on it? Do you know anything about correct cleaning of old, ancient rugs? I'll be really thankful for any of your response.