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Oriental rugs are meant to be used; they are designed to withstand foot-traffic and daily wear and tear. Still, as handmade art-forms, rugs require a certain degree of maintenance. With proper care, you can expect your Oriental rug to endure for generations. Cleaning You know not to put your sweaters in the washing machine; you bring them to the dry-cleaner along with your silk shirts. If you’ve ever ran a wool sweater through the wash you know how quickly it deteriorates. Like your sweaters, Oriental rugs too are woven from wool. Rugs are routinely washed in appliances that are not unlike washing machines. At Noor Oriental Rugs, Inc. we believe your rug deserves better care than your underwear and socks. An Oriental rug is a delicate masterpiece, carefully knotted by hand. Its rich colors are meticulously achieved with vegetable dyes. Machines and chemicals designed to cleanse and treat synthetic fibers and commercial carpeting remain unsuitable and downright harmful to hand-woven rugs—even if the consequences are not immediately apparent. These methods frequently cause tearing, unraveling, discoloration, and bleeding among other problems. Noor Oriental Rugs honors tradition, expertly tending to rugs the same way they were cared for thousands of years ago. First rugs are dusted by traditional beating. Without first beating a rug, dust would become mud during the wash, muting the colors and abrading the fibers—a critical step oft-neglected. Next rugs are gently washed with organic, herbal shampoos after which they are thoroughly rinsed. Lanolin, the natural oil of the wool, is replaced after the rug has dried. Conditioning the wool with lanolin restores the luster and suppleness of the fiber and increases the longevity of the rug. After washing rugs are mothproofed with an organic, herbal mothproofing solution. Moths represent one of the most common sources of damage to rugs and preventing them from making a home in your rug remains one of the best forms of ensuring the lastingness of your rug. In addition to mothproofing Noor applies an all natural stain inhibitor, which prevents potential stains from penetrating the wool fibers. As part of maintenance rugs are also deodorized and disinfected with organic products, as well as softened in order to prevent dry rot. It is highly recommended to have your rugs cared for in this manner on an annual basis. The difference between the methods of most and that of Noor could not be greater; common machine wash wears and ruins your rug whilst the Noor seven-step program actually restores the vitality or your rug and increases its longevity. Repair More often than not, rugs are repaired with cheap, temporary, or cosmetic solutions that fail to genuinely and lastingly mend damage and stop decay at its roots. You would not be satisfied if a car mechanic duct-taped your engine together, nor should you be content with repair that only masks the symptoms of damage to your rug. There are many such shortcuts. Frequently faded rugs are “touched-up” with markers, chemical dye, or synthetic wool, all of which fade quickly and appear as eyesores on a rug. Holes, tears, and other structural bruises are often fixed with little more than glue. Or, rather, than reweaving, a hole may simply be patched with a piece from a cut-up rug. Ideally worn areas should be rewoven, but commonly their warp and weft is simply dyed to mask the wear, leaving the rug with an uneven texture. Sometimes a rug is even cut down to size to avoid mending damaged areas. All too often machines are used to wrap edges or to staple cosmetic fringes onto rugs. Any such inferior shortcut devalues your rug. Noor Oriental Rugs stands apart in its assurance of museum-quality, authentic, and invisible repair of rugs. Noor repairs a rug with wool and dye from the same village where the rug was made to ensure that repairs remain indistinguishable from the rest of the rug. There are no technological or chemical shortcuts at Noor, only time-honored and time-tested methods. Over the millennia, hundreds of techniques have been developed for rug restoration. As no two Oriental rugs are exactly alike, Mohammad Nooraee will diagnose your rug to decide which technique is most appropriate and consult with you carefully to see which aspects of a rug you wish to repair and which you chose to preserve. In stark contrast to routine quick-fix repairs that weaken and devalue a rug, genuine authentic repair injects new life into a rug and increases its value. |
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