The awful expense of carpets and rugs

[88v8]

There are a huge number of rugs on eBay. Not expensive.
We bought one for our library, was nicely worn and very happy with it. Along with the flowery wallpaper, the flowery chairs and the flowery lampshade.... The wall-lamp shades were a slight blot, but we only dressed the room to sell the house boohoo, and they looked OK when lit.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Rugs-Carpets-/20571/i.html?Style=Traditional&_dcat=175820&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_sop=1&_from=R40&_nkw=carpet&rt=nc

Finding the exact size can be a faff, as there is little standardisation, but they're often cheap enough that one can try and pretty much throw away.

Ivor

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think we still owe around £500,000 all told (on two properties) so it's touch and go as to whether we really can afford to do BC up, afford our lifestyle. Only expecting around £65,000 from the Leeds house as apparently Paul has to have more to redress the help we were given in affording the deposit for this place. So Chris keeps trying to tell me gently not to expect to be spending anything on the house when the Leeds place is sold.

More happily, our agent for the London flat is making us put the rent up by 5% this month, we've held it low for years for our lovely tenants, but can't anymore as we're out of line with the other flats in the area. So that will certainly generate enough for cheap rugs from Ebay, and thank you so much for the encouragement in that direction. I love the gay abandon in which flowers and patterns have been put together above!Thank you so much for the photos, and Nigel that's so useful as the St Germain paper there is so similar to my St Antoine. Not sure I could live with it but maybe you just get used alongside getting used to everything else! Our modern sensibilities are certainly trained not to have much colour in our homes, but I bet the Victorians threw everything in together and didn't bat an eyelid. I should buy a biggish rug in reds and blues and put it in the dining room for 6 months, see how it goes and if I still have headaches from the pattern put it into the breakfast room which currently has no flowers at all.

The suggestion to have modern plain carpet made into rugs is a good one, thank you, I looked into that and it seems about £350 for a 9ft by 11ft plain carpet, 80% wool/20% man made fibre with a stitched edge. I think £350 is the sort of sum you don't spend expecting to throw it away fpr the perfect rug a few years later, but as plastic pigeon wisely said, a compromise between the ideal and the budget has to be found. And I have to choose between spending £1600 on the perfect rug or getting a new bath tub. Hard prioritisations throughout the whole project.

 

[Penners]

it seems about £350 for a 9ft by 11ft plain carpet, 80% wool/20% man made fibre with a stitched edge. I think £350 is the sort of sum you don't spend expecting to throw it away fpr the perfect rug a few years later

Of course it's difficult to imagine discarding a £350 rug after a few years. But you don't have to spend that much. Man-made fibre rugs would be considerably cheaper, and perfectly serviceable for a few years. Later on, once you've bought your "perfect" rug, you can decide whether the cheap one still has enough life to be used elsewhere in the house, or whether to carpet the chicken-run!

For example: http://www.valuerugs.co.uk/a~vr2663-valuerugs-element-lancaster-red-rug-120-x-160-cm.html

 

[Nigel Watts]

The use of colour in Persian carpets is a great lesson in how to combine many different colours and yet achieve a harmonious overall effect.

I have found colour coordination the most difficult thing to get right in decorating. My green and yellow drawing room was my first attempt at a coordinated interior. I am pleased with it but not convinced I have got it completely right (the other end of the room, with its oak bookcases and brown leather upholstery works better). The investment in the upholstery and curtain materials added up to a lot more than the hand printed wallpaper (even more if the value of the inherited carpet is taken into account) which makes me think that in future one should start with the fabrics rather than the wall treatment, or at least work on them at the same time.

My wife's salmon and dark blue bathroom was an experiment which I am also quite pleased with, but my hall, predominatly in two shades of dark red with touches of green, blue, buff, cream, pink and violet is the space I am most proud of. It took weeks of agonising and experimentation to get a colour balance I thought could work, something I was only able to do because I had a year off, and if I hadn't been prepared to take some risks I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I can recommend the choice of Roger Oates for runners. Ours have been in place for ten years or so and still look very good (and survived been thrown up over by William) even though they are woven rather then pile.

 

[88v8]

....makes me think that in future one should start with the fabrics rather than the wall treatment, or at least work on them t the same time..

I think so. Start with the area where there is the least choice - carpets or curtains or fabrics - then the paper then the paint.

And I agree with Joce about trying a red/blue carpet. I believe that so long as there is a commonality or overlap in the colourways, things will work. In the library carpet, red/blue; in the chairs pinkish/blue; in the paper pinkish/green; the standard lamp pinkish/green again. Oddly, what looked 'wrong' in that room was the plain velvet curtains and the plain wall lamp shades.

Mind you, we weren't attempting the utmost refinement like Nigel; in his room I would want to vet the colour of the book spines, and one couldn't possibly enter with un-co-ordinated apparel.

Ivor

 

[Owain]

The suggestion to have modern plain carpet made into rugs is a good one, thank you, I looked into that and it seems about £350 for a 9ft by 11ft plain carpet, 80% wool/20% man made fibre with a stitched edge. I think £350 is the sort of sum you don't spend expecting to throw it away fpr the perfect rug a few years later,

Not to throw away, but you can re-use it in another room, or sell it on. 9x11ft can be resold as a room size rug or for cutting and fitting.

You could always add interest with one or two smaller (cheaper) colourful rugs in places over the plain.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It's so helpful to read these thoughts, thank you. I agree if you've spent a couple or so hundred and have looked after the piece it would always have a resale value.

And thank you for the very very good value rug link Mr P, not found that and that's helpful!

Nigel I think you've been so brave with colour and your efforts have rewarded you. Your house is a lot more grand than here and takes it well. I've been quite cautious by comparison, using just two colours per room.

In our house you enter a dove grey and cream porch (with a flagstone floor that needs something) and go through double doors into a mustard yellow,cream and grey/black hall (with another flagstone floor that needs something). From that point you see through the open doors into all the wallpapered rooms with their bare wooden floors, what will be a peach and jade drawing room , what will be a black and white deco bathroom, a rust and cream dining room, leading through to a light green and cream music room, as well as two predominantly blue and cream bedrooms. Without a door at the top of the stairs you'd also see the now imaginary Roger Oates runner, leading down to the basement. If I were to add 6 large Persian rugs into the mix I think I'd go mad!

Designers I spoke to said choose a palette, like duck egg/eau de nil/biscuit, and use it throughout the ground floor, bringing in natural seagrass or sisal carpets.That sounded so completely contemporary and dull I decided to ignore them, but it would have meant easier choices.

I wonder what was on the floors here in 1820, I bet nothing at all!

Thanks for all the help though- lots to mull over.

 

[Flyfisher]

For example: http://www.valuerugs.co.uk/a~vr2663-valuerugs-element-lancaster-red-rug-120-x-160-cm.html

That looks like a useful website . . . although I'd want to check the exact thickness of those rugs "0 D" seems a tad on the thin side. :wink:

 

[plasticpigeon]

I have a book called "Victorians at home" which contains watercolours drawing and photos from just before the Victorian Era in 1820, to about 1900. The earlier houses in the book are more grand than some of the later ones but I was struck by how many of the pictures of the earlier houses showed rooms with fitted carpets.

 

[Penners]

That looks like a useful website . . . although I'd want to check the exact thickness of those rugs "0 D" seems a tad on the thin side. :wink:

It's a Health & Safety requirement, to stop you tripping over the edge of the rug.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Joce, tardy reply here to your carpet thread, but computer has been 'ill' for a few days!!

When we moved to our house in BM I inherited quite reasonable floorboards but had always been used to fitted velvet pile carpets-- to keep down the costs in two rooms oI had pieces of ryalux king velvet measured, whipped and corded to fit the centre of the rooms and keep me on budget for floor coverings. Both those carpets moved to Walsingham with us and I now have them down here, one fitted into the outer hall and one under the dining room table. I also moved a whole fitted carpet, again king velvet, from one house to another. Have a look at Westex, and Ryalux, they do different types of velvet. John Lewis does a very good one at an extremely competative price. My criteria has always been plain fitted carpet or carpet piece, leaving you free to splash colour, pattern etc onto upholstry, wallpapers and curtains .

 

[JoceAndChris]

Joss- that's wonderful thanks. Glad you give the plain carpets with whipped edges the thumbs up, I think that's what we'll do in the case of the dining room, music and bedrooms then. The more I look at Persian rugs the more I realise they aren't for me. Lovely in themselves but too busy for me in these small rooms with wallpaper, tapestry cushions, elaborate curtains, Chinoiserie painted cabinet etc. And the bespoke rugs by Nourison, much plainer in design, I'm looking at are well over £1000 each It just seems mad to spend so much on carpets when we're still limping the 80s bathroom along!

This Ryalux one - "Charlotte" would be completely perfect in the dining room, thanks. Will get a 11x9 section priced up.

http://www.ryalux.com/ChooseCarpet/ChooseByRange/6/31

 

[jocelyn plummer]

oooooo Joce, exciting! Your point about Persian rugs in small rooms is a good one--- I am finding that smaller rooms in our downsize have another disadvantage--- the eye sweeps round and sees everything in one go, so anyhting out of place, wrong colour, wrong size, is sooooo obvious.

Hope you have every success with your whipped and corded floor covering!!!

 

[Penners]

Hope you have every success with your whipped and corded floor covering

Oo-er!!

Do post photos Joce!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Which Joce? Joss?

You saw my whipped and corded in walsingham, however we were probably too busy trying to find the missing staircase--- remember Moo taking a screwdriver to the attic floor, and Alan standing below yelling out, 'found i't-- all to no avail in the end!!!!