Rugs are a great way to brighten up your interior design, add warmth and depth to a room, and also protect existing floor coverings too. Be that as it may, one mistake that many homeowners fall into is to use the same cleaning methods they would for a carpet. Whereas carpets are designed to handle heavy footfall and staining, rugs are often made from more delicate materials and are at more risk to damage if the proper care methods aren’t taken.
We caught up with The Rug Seller and got some handy hints on how to correctly care for your rug, covering everything from everyday cleaning to effective stain removal.
The everyday clean
Many of us will just tackle our rugs like a carpet without giving it a second thought, whizzing the vacuum quickly over and moving on. Unfortunately the suction from the vacuum can cause cosmetic damage to tassels or loose ends and roughen up the texture of the material. So what should you do instead?
Firstly, turn the rug upside down and vacuum the back - this will loosen any ground in dirt in the pile and pick up anything on the underside too. After this, you can flip it back over and delicately vacuum the main areas of the rug, avoiding any tassels – these should be fluffed out by hand and a soft-bristled brush used to remove any ground in dirt.
Once you’ve finished this process, it’s always worth using a brush to remove any persistent hair or dust that remains on the surface too – this is often the case if you have any pets in the household.
Tackling spillages
The second thing we want to take a look at is how to correctly clean spillages on your rug. Everyone has their own opinion on this - some say to blot the area with kitchen paper to remove the liquid then apply a carpet cleaning product, others say that for red wine spillages you should pour on white wine or soda water and blot dry or apply salt to soak up the liquid and vacuum up once it’s dry.
While these have their merits, The Rug Seller has given us a simple and effective method for dealing with all manner of spillages that works on almost any pile of rug, soaking up the spill and leaving your rug looking as good as new.
The key to tackling a spillage effectively is to act fast - the longer you leave a spill to soak in, the more likely it is to leave a lasting reminder.
Forget expensive cleaning products, all you need to treat a spillage on your rug is a clean white cloth and a bowl of clean water. Soak the cloth and squeeze it out before blotting over the spillage area, allowing the cloth to soak up the spilled liquid.
Repeat this process until all the spilled liquid has been soaked up by the cloth and leave to dry.
If it’s a large spillage, make sure to change the water so you’re not transferring dirty water back into the rug pile. By applying these methods to rug cleaning and spillages, you can keep your rug looking fresh and clean for longer with very little extra effort and no need for expensive cleaning products.
Information courtesy of The Rug Seller, for more information please visit: www.therugseller.co.uk