Rug Report: Orian Wild Weave Modern Tile Carpet

This week, it's Rug Week at Librarian Tells All! I recently bought a few new area rugs online, and I found it so difficult to choose without seeing the rugs in person. So I'm writing about each new rug, and providing the information I wish had been available when I was making my choices. Are you rug shopping, too? Keep reading!

Cool neutral colors. That's what came to mind when I imagined the perfect rug for our living room. I wanted to use interesting textures, not bright colors, to set a calm and relaxing tone. But I wanted cool grays and taupes, not yellowy beiges and browns. You'd be amazed by how hard it is to find a neutral rug that doesn't have any brown!

So when I saw the Modern Tile rug by Orian at Brentwood Interiors, I knew I'd found the perfect one. This rug is part of their Wild Weave collection. "Wild Weave" is shorthand for "Plush shag rugs that you can squish your toes into." These are thick, deeply plush rugs. Before I bought it, I checked the prices online. I was shocked that the Brentwood Interiors price was so much better: They charged about half of what I would've paid online. Whoa! Lesson learned: Check local shops before buying online.

Of all my recent rug purchases, this is actually the first one I bought. And it's the only one I saw in person before buying. But I'm not sure I would've bought it if I hadn't seen it in person. Why? Because it's made of "heat-set polypropylene fibers." That sounds bad, right? It makes me think of plastic soda bottles and the cheap iron-on patches I put on t-shirts when I was a kid. The ones that curled at the edges as soon as I ironed them on, and then fell off a few weeks later. But what does it actually mean? As it turns out, heat setting is a process that keeps the ends of the fibers from unraveling and turning into a sloppy mess. It works like this:
1. Twist fiber 2. Apply heat 3. Fiber stays twisted forever. 4. Rug won't flatten as easily. It also doesn't pick up as much dirt or pet hair. I can get behind that.

Bonus: This rug makes dogs happy. It's their favorite rug in the house.
This tidbit of information led me down a research rabbit hole. Suddenly I wanted to know everything about rugs before making more purchases. Yes, I'm such a stereotypical librarian! If you want to do the same research, I found these to be the best resources:

• World Floor Covering Association's guide to How Area Rugs are Made will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the knots and dyes used in handmade rugs.
• Jacobsen's Guide to Identifying Handmade Versus Machine Made Rugs provides great knowledge to take with you to the flea market. This would be very helpful when haggling!
• Jacobsen's Guide to Choosing Rugs Sizes for Living Rooms gives all the normal rug size advice, PLUS tips for using two rugs in one room without making it look weird.
• The Guide to Synthetic Rug Fibers is SO USEFUL for normal people who aren't buying $3,000 Oriental rugs. Do you know which common synthetic material resists sun damage better? Or which one is least durable AND most likely to go up in flames? Now you do.

With this handy research guide, Rug Week concludes. I hope it gave you something to consider when you're making your next major carpet purchase. And remember... use customer service live chat to ask for coupon codes! I still can't believe how much money we saved by doing that.