Why do you need the best handmade carpets?
The answer lies in the making. Do you want something that is made without any care or love, without patience and diligence; just in and out, woven fabric?
Or do you need something that takes time to be what it is, that grows into a flat, thick rug of warmth and hand-made beauty?
Of course the latter. We’d not just need it, but want it. This is why we want you to decorate your living room with the best carpets that are made by hand.
Top 3 best handmade carpets
Here are 3 of the best handmade carpets that we came across:
01. Gray Wool Area Rug
This carpet is made by the owner who goes by the name Maria. As much beautiful her creations are, so is the service. The carpet that we are going to discuss has a very contemporary touch to it.
With bursts of Ash stripes amidst all the white, quite Scandanavian in design. She calls the style “modern”. The color, although showcased in grey, can be changed according to your taste.
And if you are not too big of a fan of the pattern, you can ask it to be changed too. The size of the rug is also customizable. So fewer worries on whether or not it will fit the dimensions of your floor.
The carpet, or as she calls it, the “blanket” is made on wooden looms, of course by the hand. The main raw material of the rug is sheep wool.
As she follows her ancestors in the process of making such rugs, she generally makes them without paint. Before the final product is prepared, the plaid pieces are pre-soaked and dried in water so that they do not shrink after your first wash at home.
After that, it is brush-dried, which is optional if you are doing it at home.
Pros
Cons
The process of making this rug will put you at ease and in consideration for buying it.
What they do is, first the get their sheep who are well-fed and of course, well treated. After the wool grows and grows, they shear the manageable sheep and their wool, without harming them.
Next, they clean the wool in water and dry it, to be placed in the wooden weaving machine. They work with their hands and make the different pieces, which are later plaid together and re-washed and dried.
The multiple-washing technique works wonders. Do you know how there always remains the fear that when you wash a newly-bought fabric, it shrinks in size?
Well, it doesn’t happen when the material is presoaked in water. This is exactly why the rug is soaked and cleaned before sending it to you one final time.
Coming to the pattern of the rug. You will see everything geometric here. Squares, almost-hexagons, lines and boxes and what not! But this is what adds a very modern, polished look to it. And do you know the good thing about it?
You can change the pattern, the color and even the size of the rug before you purchase it. So much for easy buying.
Pros
- Can be both vacuum-cleaned or water-cleaned.
- Adds beauty to the living room.
- Modern and bears good taste.
- Easy to clean in both washing machine, vacuum cleaner and by hand.
- Made of hundred percent sheep wool.
Cons
- Has no scope of adding paint to it.
03. Handmade Palace Gate Design Carpet
This one is from Carpettappeto and is totally different from the previous two and has a regal vibe to it.
It features intricate patterns and designs all forming a prominent palace gate which makes it look almost like the prayer rugs.
It has a very vintage, Aladdin-ish vibes to it. If your living room features Victorian furniture, wooden floors, with French antique or Magnolia chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, dried flowers in the corners and warm golden light sweeping over everything, this is the only thing you are missing.
The carpet is made wool-on-wool and has mostly floral patterns on it. All the colors that have been used in the making of the carpet are naturally-dyed. So it is, of course, more expensive than would be if it had synthetic dyes.
So there are some bad sides as there are good sides and they are:
Pros
- A vintage style so will fit a rustic decor more nicely.
- Floral pattern.
- Made using wool-on-wool.
Cons
- Naturally dyed colors fade faster.
- More expensive.
- Harder to clean.
Buying guide for the best handmade carpets
Here are some of the things you will need to remember and look out for when you are buying the best handmade carpets:
Before Buying
First, you will need to know the floor space of the room you plan to lay your carpet on. It could be your living room or bedroom. Sometimes, it occurs that you visit a market and like what you see, get it, and come back home disappointed seeing that it doesn’t fit your floor space.
A large carpet may look nice in a small room, but a large one will look so out of place. Again, whether or not you will be placing a lot of furniture on top of the carpet, a little, or none at all will impact its type. If you want the floor to show or hide it under the carpet should be a matter of concern.
Again, according to the area, you will need to choose the shape of the carpet. Should it be oval, circular, rectangular, square? Should it be narrow or wide? For you to decide.
Also, the style of the handmade carpet should be corresponding with the furniture of the room. If your room has minimal and modern furniture, you would like something contemporary/floral/abstracts on the floor. If your furniture has a rustic feel, the same should go for your carpet. But sometimes contrasts work well too.
Coming to your budget, you can buy the most luxurious carpet and no one could tell that you just had to pay a few hundred dollars for that! It happens. Something that is cheap and poorly built will start to wear off, throw away the color and put off the charm you wanted it to carry to your room.
Again, sellers could sell you something that they called art and you could come home and see it isn’t quite so. The material, pattern, weaving will open up to you how much you should be paying for it. And remember one thing, you can always haggle to get the best bargain!
During Buying
The first thing that you should look for when buying a carpet is its material.
The material should range cotton, jute, wool, silk, etc. Did you know animal hair is also used to make the carpets?
Now you do. Again, your material can be flame-resistant or dog-pee resistant. You just need to know your purpose.
Again the color of the carpet is also something that will be of importance in your room. A vibrant red, soothing white, jolly florals, haughty stripes, regal patterns, anything can boost the ambiance of the room or totally take it down, depending on the surroundings.
And all the colors need not be artificial, rather can be vegetable-dyed, or made from crushed insects, henna, flowers, and whatnot.
Another last thing that you will need to keep in mind in the knot count of the carpet. Since these are hand-woven, they will lack the uniformity of the machines with respect to the knots per square inch. 120 would be just perfect, meaning not too close and not too loose in the weaving pattern.
Although you don’t need to sit on the floor and turn it to count it, a glance would do the trick. There will be bigger and obvious hand-woven knots sitting close.
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Final Words
We hope we could recommend the best handmade carpets! Even if we didn’t, we have added a basic yet super useful buying guide.
If you follow these points before your next visit to the carpet store or before ordering online your first carpet, you will be benefitted and can lay your hands on some of the best handmade carpets. Or so we hope!
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