Filed under: Decorating, Finding, Rug Love

My wife and I have almost completed the decoration of the rental home we have in the city. It is a very contemporary condo on the south side of town which is where the chic and young crowd is starting to become more popular. The condo was built in one of the old factories that has been renovated into the typical loft/condo that you see in most major cities these days. A modest price and a modest look go hand in hand. My wife is an exquisite interior designer always keeping her eyes open for the piece that pulls everything together. What we were looking for – as I am told – was a red rug that would “pull everything together.” The colors on the walls to the color of the furniture would totally pop when we find the right red area rug.

Shopping for the right pieces is something that I can’t stand to be quite honest. But she never ceases to amaze me. Going from store to store on the weekends is time well spent with my wife but the technical eye aspect is not my thing. We can literally walk into one of the many chic furniture stores these days and my wife will see what she is looking for from across the store. So this day is like not unlike any of the others. We travel to NYC, pop into her favorite store, and there it is – the red rug that we have apparently been looking for to finish off the condo. I am telling you it is quite amazing as there were a few people in what I would call her line of sight and there was furniture almost completely surrounding this fantastic, contemporary, red floor rug. Hawk eyes would be a great nickname for her. The rug was perfect size and color red was what I was told.

So here I am at the register trying to explain to the cashier that we wanted to purchase the red rug that was underneath antique Chinese bedroom set two rows over. After we figured out everything, we took the rug back to the condo immediately –as if I had a choice. The furniture was moved, the red rug was unrolled and to be quite honest, it did make all the difference in the world. We had a showing the very next day and wouldn’t you know it, a young couple looking to move into the big city, loved the decorations. The young lady and my wife talked for what seemed like hours – it was as if they knew each other from high school or something. A small comment – to me anyways – was made about the decorations and of course the rug. My wife was grinning from ear to ear with that “I told you so” look on her face. Needless to say, I will trust my wife’s instincts on the decorating part from now on.  Thank god she was there to help a helpless guy like me in finding one of our favorite red area rugs to date.

Tags: contemporary red rug, red area rug, red area rugs, red floor rug, red oriental rugs, red rugs, red throw rug

Filed under: Repair, Rug Love

My wife and I planned on having the family over for Easter. It is a big thing in our family to host the Easter dinner as usually there are at least sixteen or more people present. Our house is large enough to fit everyone without a doubt but lately we have been debating on whether or not we were going to have to replace the within the family and dining rooms. The rug has recently started to ripple or wave. When we describe our rugs in the house, people tend to give us many different looks. For some people, having a red rug in the living room seems to be strange, but definitely not to us. When we moved in, the rugs were the same “plain Jane” beige that everyone has installed. We immediately tore those out and replaced with out decorating tastes. When people come over to our house, they absolutely fall in love with what they see.

So back to the issue at-hand and the large number of guests and the rippling of our red area rug. The rug ripples started a few months ago. We just assumed it was normal wear and tear since we have had the rugs for about five or six years now. We have discussed the amount of money it would take to either replace the rug with something new or possibly even putting down hardwood flooring. The price tags for both were more than we wanted to spend and we clearly still loved the red rug. A friend of mine at work said he had the same issue with his red rugs. Then he also told me to look online for what is called “restretching”. I never heard of such a thing but found many companies that specialize in restretching online. There were even a few “How To’s” and I thought about giving it a go, but with the time crunch we were working under I just chose to have someone come in and do it. After phoning a few of the companies to compare prices and availability, we booked an appointment to fix our beloved red floor rug.

I will be happy to tell you that the restretching worked wonders. The red rug looks great again – no rippling or waves present at all. The company came in out and it literally didn’t even take as much time as he quoted us. They were in and out in just a couple of hours. Easter dinner was a huge success and our wallet is still in good condition. It just goes to show that you never know what you will find until you ask or search on the web.

Tags: red area rug, red area rugs, red floor rug, red oriental rugs, red rug, red rugs, red throw rug

Filed under: Brands, Decorating, Finding, Styles

I am a northerner – born and raised – now living in the South. My wife and I recently bought a modest size house – as everything is much cheaper here in the Carolina’s than in New Jersey, including my favorite contemporary red rug, which I’ll get to later. We have yet to decorate the house completely. We are going through the house room by pain-staking room. We didn’t move much down here with us as we wanted to start as fresh as possible. One of the many things missing down here was one of our favorite stores – Ikea. Finally one has opened up relatively close by. We were excited – I know this may sound strange to some people – about the new store but let me explain why. We were accustomed to buying products from Ikea for a while. When you go without and then purchase a house with not much in it, you tend to forget what you had. We started to buy online but it is just not the same as you are not able to touch and feel the items you are looking at. One example is that of a particular round red rug we were looking to purchase. The Ikea PS to be exact.

The reason we were looking particularly for a red rug was this – we have the contemporary taste that some either love or hate. In our case, we love it. Some of the furniture in our family room is a nice, deep rich black leather with brushed metal feet. The coffee table was a frosted glass top and brushed metallic feet. The color of the rug would set the entire room off – at least those are the words that my wife said. When we went to Ikea and browsed for a bit – funny how they design the store so that it takes you a long time to get through no matter how pressed for time that you may be. One of the display areas had furniture very similar to our and had the exact rug we were looking to purchase. This only confirmed to my wife how great the ensemble looked.

After meandering our way through the rest of the displays, we finally found the area the red rug was stored – one of the many self-serve bins – and proceeded to the check-out along with a few other necessities such as a hot dog and extra set of glasses for the kitchen. When we got home, it was just as if Ikea had come to our house looking for design options. It looked great.

Tags: contemporary red rug, Ikea PS, red floor rug, red oriental rugs, red rug, red rugs, red throw rug