Hand Work

Repairs That Disappear Into the Weave

Rug repair is not patching. A proper repair rebuilds the rug the way it was originally made — foundation first, then pile, matched to the original knot density and dye lot — so the repaired section moves, wears and ages at the same rate as everything around it. Done well, you have to be told where it was.

A fair amount of the work on this coast starts by undoing something. Rugs here change hands locally: estate sales, auctions, dealers, downsizing, and a great many pieces inherited within a family. By the time a rug is fifty years old somebody has usually mended it with whatever was to hand — a glued canvas backing, a taped edge, a machine-serged side sewn straight over the original selvedge, a patch cut out of a different rug altogether. That comes off before anything new goes in.

Every repair starts with a free assessment and a straight verdict. If the cost of the work is out of proportion to what the rug is worth, we say so instead of taking the job.

Matched wool being knotted back into an oriental rug at the repair bench — Hand reweaving: matched wool knotted back into an oriental rug foundation.

What We Fix

Repair & Restoration Services

From a short fringe tidy to rebuilding a foot of missing border.

Fringe Repair & Replacement

Fringe is the end of the rug’s foundation, not decoration, so when it shreds the rug is unravelling. We secure the ends, rebuild lost warps, and replace or re-knot fringe to match the original.

Edge Binding & Serging

Side cords take the abuse from vacuum beaters and furniture legs. Once they split, the pile beside them starts letting go. Edges are rewrapped by hand in matched wool.

Reweaving & Hole Repair

Burns, tears and worn-through areas are rebuilt knot by knot. The foundation goes back first, then the pile, matched in fibre, colour and density to the field around it.

Carpet Beetle & Moth Damage

Both eat wool from underneath, so by the time bare foundation shows there is usually an active problem. Carpet beetles are the more common of the two in Florida houses: the adults fly in through screens or arrive on cut flowers and the larvae graze along still, undisturbed edges. We treat the infestation, then reweave what was eaten.

Pet Damage

Chewed corners, clawed edges and urine-burnt dye. The rug is decontaminated first, then the missing structure is rebuilt and colour corrected where the original dye was destroyed.

Colour & Dye Correction

Bleach spots, dye that migrated during a bad home clean or a soaking, and the pale halo left where a high-pH cleaner pulled colour out of wool. Colour is rebuilt by hand where the fibre is still sound.

Display Sleeves & Hanging Repair

A rug hung from nails, clips or a rod through the fringe carries its whole weight on one row of foundation, and that row eventually parts. We rebuild the torn warps, block the piece back to square, and fit a full-width sleeve so the load spreads across the top edge the way it should have from the start.

Backing & Foundation Repair

Failed latex on hand-tufted rugs, brittle cotton warps in antiques, rugs that ripple because the foundation gave way, and the weakened band along one edge of a rug that has been living against a damp wall. Structure gets fixed before anything cosmetic.

Rug Pads & Prevention

A great many of the repairs we do could have been avoided by a decent pad. We fit breathable, non-adhesive pads sized to the rug — which matters most on terrazzo and polished floors, where the cheap PVC and tacky-coated pads soften in summer heat, weld themselves to the foundation and leave a yellow film that has to be broken down chemically.

Wet Rug Service

Soaked Rugs, Leaks & Water Damage Restoration

A supply line behind a washing machine, a water heater at the end of its life, a condensate pan that overflowed out of the air-handler closet, or a rug found under a fortnight of wet beach towels in a unit nobody was staying in. The rug on that floor is now on a clock.

Why speed matters more than anything else

Wool survives being wet surprisingly well. What it does not survive is staying wet. In a warm room mould establishes in a saturated foundation in roughly forty-eight hours, and once it is at the base of the pile you cannot vacuum, spray or air-dry it back out. On this coast the room is always warm enough. Meanwhile unstable dyes start migrating, cotton foundations begin to rot, and whatever the water picked up crossing the floor is curing into the rug.

The complication in a rental market is that the clock usually starts without anybody watching it. The leak happens between guests, or in a guest wing, or under a rug in a room nobody has walked into since March. By the time it is reported the forty-eight hours are long gone — which does not mean the rug is finished, but it does mean the job is a full decontamination rather than a dry-out. A fan pointed at a wet rug is not restoration: it dries the surface, seals the contamination into the foundation, and produces a rug that smells fine for three weeks and then does not.

What to do before we arrive

Get the rug off the wet floor and out from under furniture — wooden legs bleed stain into a damp pile within hours.
Do not roll it tightly in plastic. That is an incubator. Loose and airy beats sealed.
Photograph it wet, in place, before moving anything. Your insurer will want that.
Do not half-rinse it with a hose and leave it. That sets the contamination and complicates the real wash.
If the property is managed, tell the manager to lift and photograph it rather than waiting for you to fly down. Days matter more than distance.

The restoration sequence

Priority collection. Wet rugs are run ahead of routine cleaning where the schedule allows.
Category assessment. Clean supply water, grey water and contaminated water are three different jobs, and which one you have decides the method.
Extraction and full flush. Contaminants are washed out of the foundation, not sealed in behind a dry surface.
Antimicrobial treatment. Applied to the whole rug, front and back, before drying starts.
Monitored flat drying. Forced filtered air with moisture readings taken to completion, so nothing goes home damp.
Dye-bleed correction. Colours that migrated while the rug was wet are pulled back where the fibre allows.
Structural repair. Rotted foundation and lost pile rewoven once the rug is stable and dry.
Claim documentation. Photographs and a written condition report for your insurance carrier.

Request an Estimate What damp does to a rug

A rug photographed flat after water-damage recovery, field colour brought back through the pile

How It Works

From First Message to Delivery

Photos or Collection

Send pictures of the damage, or we collect the rug at no charge anywhere across Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Assessment & Quote

The damage is mapped, materials identified, earlier repairs found, and you get a written price with options. No work starts without your approval.

Clean First

Repairs go onto a clean rug. Working new wool into a dirty field leaves a visible patch a year later.

Materials Matched

Wool selected by fibre, weight and dye lot against the original, and tested against the field before it goes in.

Hand Repair

Foundation rebuilt, then pile knotted in at matching density, then sheared to the surrounding height.

Final Check & Return

Groomed, inspected against the intake photographs, and delivered back to your floor.

Questions

Repair & Restoration FAQ

Is my rug worth repairing?

You get a straight answer before any work starts. Repair makes sense when the rug has real value — sentimental or monetary — and the foundation is sound. When the cost of the work approaches what the rug is worth, we say so rather than quietly running up an invoice.

How long does rug repair take?

It depends entirely on the area involved, because reweaving is hand work measured in square inches. You get a timeline with the written quote, before you commit. Water damage is handled differently because it is time-critical, so those rugs go into the process as soon as they arrive rather than waiting their turn.

I inherited this and somebody has clearly fixed it before. Is that a problem?

It is common here and it is usually manageable, but it does have to be dealt with first. Old glued backings, taped edges, machine-sewn binding over a hand-wrapped selvedge and patches cut from other rugs all have to come off before new work goes in, because they distort how the rug lies and they hide what is actually wrong underneath. That comes out in the assessment, along with anything that was done to the colour, and it is priced before you commit.

Can you hang a rug on a wall properly?

Yes, and it is worth doing before the damage rather than after. A textile should hang from a full-width fabric sleeve sewn to the back, so the weight is carried evenly across the whole top edge instead of by a few warps at a nail or a clip. If the rug has already been hung badly, the torn warps are rebuilt and the piece is blocked back to square first, then the sleeve goes on.

Will the repair be visible?

A good reweave is difficult to find once the pile is groomed. Wool is matched by fibre, dye lot and knot density, and the foundation is rebuilt before the pile so the repaired area wears at the same rate as the rest of the rug rather than sinking or standing proud over time.

Do you work with insurance claims?

Yes. Condition is photographed at intake and throughout, and you get written documentation of damage, treatment and value impact to submit to your carrier.

My rug ripples and will not lie flat. Can that be fixed?

Usually. Buckling comes from an uneven foundation, past improper drying, or years on a pad that was too soft. The rug is washed, blocked back to square under tension, and the foundation repaired where it has stretched or torn.

Send Us a Photo. We Will Tell You Straight.

Free assessment on every repair, and a real answer about whether it is worth doing.

Start a Free Estimate See Service Areas

Rug Cleaning

The six-stage hand wash every rug goes through, and why in-home wand cleaning fails here.

Cleaning process

Suncoast Care Notes

Fine sand, rental seasons, collected textiles and under-used rooms — what rug owners here need to know.

Care notes

Book a Collection

Collection and delivery included across Sarasota and Manatee counties.

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Rug Repair & Restoration in Sarasota