Ten Rug Cleaning Tips from Sharon Lundahl at Music for the Eyes
1. FIRST, we are talking here about the care of hand-made rugs of wool, those rugs which should last 100 years if cared for properly.
To tell if a rug is hand-made, look at the back. If you can see the same design on the back as on the front, that’s woven. If you see a canvas or burlap material on the back, that’s a tufted rug. Those are typically made in India and China, where they use a lot of glue and sometimes bad latex. It looks like a pile rug but may last only 5 or 10 years. Other machine-made rugs have a whitish coating on the back which will eventually disintegrate. Woven wool rugs last centuries.
Natural woolen rugs are the best. They are strong and practically indestructible. Beware of rugs identified as wool and silk, or manmade silk, as they are often a weak viscose that doesn’t hold color and sheds.
2. SECOND, is to dispel the myth that rugs MUST be cleaned after a certain time period. We have rugs in our home that have not been washed for more than 20 years, and they are still happily beautiful.
3. THIRD, you do NOT have to send rugs out to a rug cleaner (who might charge you $5 per square foot) who could do some magic that you can’t do. If you have the time and energy you can clean a rug yourself. A handmade woolen rug is not some delicate thing. Remember the pictures of of village women beating rugs hung over a line? While we do not recommend either hanging rugs on a line or beating them, the rugs survived.
4. A QUICK FIX: If you spill something on a rug, run to the kitchen, grab a pot and squirt some handy liquid soap into tepid water. Rub the spot with a lot of water on a dishcloth until the spot disappears. Dry it a bit with a towel. Do the same with clear water to remove the soap. Leave towels on top for a day or so, and the towels will absorb the water.
5. RED WINE: If you spill red wine on the rug, run to the kitchen and grab the container of salt. Pour a little mountain of salt on the spill. It will absorb the wine. This works, believe it or not. I did this with a spill on a beige rug, and you could not later find the spot. Do it right away, before it dries. Clean up salt with hand vacuum and later water.
6. A DIRTY DOOR RUG: If you have a little rug in front of your doorway that gets a lot of dirt from incoming shoes, just do the following. Pick a sunny day. Take it to the deck, or a friend’s deck if you can find one. Take buckets of soapy water and throw on the rug, rubbing gently on any spots. Hose the rug off until the soap is gone. If you want to be especially kind to the rug, use a gentle soap like Woolite or horse-hair shampoo. IMPORTANT: Let it dry flat. Do not hang, or it might lose its shape.
7. CURLING CORNERS: If you have a rug curling up on the corner, use this technique to flatten it. Wash or just wetten the rug. While drying put a pile of books or something else heavy on the corner of the rug. I use black plastic garbage bags on top to protect the books, and on the bottom if there are wood floors or other rugs below where it is drying. Think of the rug as a wool sweater which can be shaped when wet.
8. THE BEST WAY: If you have a valuable beloved mid-sized rug, and you are willing to spend some time on it, here is the absolute best way to clean a rug. We were shown the following technique by friends from the WDC Textile Museum, who washed an antique rug worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Get an empty garbage can and some horsehair shampoo from a feed store. Fill the garbage can with tepid water and soap and stir gently. Let the rug soak in the garbage can for 45 minutes. Take the rug out and GENTLY push out some of the water. Do not twist or use harsh methods. Fill the garbage can with clear water and rinse. Gently drain some water out of the rug. Put in a second rinse containing water and horse-hair conditioner from the same feed store. Take out, drain some of the water and let dry flat on the deck or driveway. When it is mostly dry, you can bring it inside and have it dry the final bit inside.
You can also soak a rug in the bathtub, but it is difficult to get it outside to drain without dripping all over your floors on the way.
9. A BIG RUG: Finally, how to clean a giant rug you don’t want to move: Rent a rug cleaning machine. Follow the instructions for wall-to-wall carpets, but do not use hot water. (Because wool shrinks.) Use tepid water.
10: VACUUM: Can you vacuum too much? Some of today’s vacuums may be too aggressive, especially if there is hard floor underneath. We just shake most of our rugs outside every two weeks. Also, we recommend the use of an old-fashioned carpet sweeper. If you want to vacuum every couple of weeks, use a canister vacuum with the beater bar set high for less abrasion. Vacuum from side to side, rather than end-to-end, so you don’t grab the fringe.
We invite you to visit us in person on Whidbey Island to see our current selection of hand-made wool rugs. Here on our site we have examples of the many types of rugs we sell in the shop, such as gabbehs. Our current inventory is available to browse in person. We look forward to helping you fall in love with a rug!