A great way to get more life out of your area rugs, to prevent wear and tear, and to keep them looking clean and nice, is to rotate them periodically. This is a great spring cleaning project. If you can complete this project every year or two, you will keep your area rugs looking nicer for longer.
We have hardwood floors throughout the house, so we have several area rugs. Some of our rugs get a lot of traffic, and several rugs get very little traffic. For the more heavily used rugs, I rotate them once a year, usually in the Spring time. Except for last year, I did this project before Christmas. For the area rugs that get less traffic, I rotate those about every 2 years.
Area rugs have a tendency to get worn out in the same places where there is traffic. Also, you may not notice fading, but fading will happen if your rug is in the same position all the time. Help your area rugs last longer by rotating them periodically.
Rotate Your Rugs
1. Move all of the furniture and any other items off of the rug. I am able to move all of my furniture myself with the help of furniture sliders (afflink). I have furniture sliders for carpets, and furniture sliders for hardwood floors.
2. Roll back the area rug.
3. I have rug pads (afflink) under all of my area rugs, so I also need to roll back the rug pads.
Tip: While you have the furniture moved out of the way, and the area rugs rolled up, now is a great time to clean the floor underneath both the rug and underneath the furniture.
4. After you roll the area rug and rug pad up, rotate it before you roll it back out and put it back. Rotate the rug around, and then unroll it back out. You will usually see indentation marks in the rug where the feet of your furniture were placed.
5. For the indentations/marks left by furniture feet, my trick is to run my vacuum attachment over each spot. I move the attachment in all directions to help restore the carpet pile.
6. It’s not perfect, but it works pretty good. Over time, the indentation fades away even more.
Tip: If you need to clean your area rugs, now is the perfect time. Check with the manufacturer’s information, but you can shampoo many area rugs the same way you would wall-to-wall carpeting. Surprise, surprise! I have my own carpet shampooer! I will often shampoo my area rugs during this process. Shampooing also helps remove the furniture feet indentations too. Now, when I say “shampoo,” I mean clean. You can spot clean if that is more appropriate. You can just use water if you are concerned about using carpet shampoo on your area rugs. I usually use a little bit of carpet shampoo when I clean my area rugs, but not too much. It will be messy around the perimeter of the rug as the water/steam shoots out. So, I usually have to go around the perimeter on the hardwood and do a final clean up.
7. Move all of your furniture back into place. Your area rugs and floors will thank you for it!
Tip: Before you rotate and then roll the area rug back out, move it a little bit. Don’t put it back in the EXACT spot that it was in before. This will help prevent wear and tear, and fading on your hard surface floor underneath. I don’t move my area rugs over a whole lot, or the rug will be too off-center. But, I do move it around several inches each time, to help prevent fading in the same spots on the hardwood floor underneath.
Tip: Consider giving your room a mini-makeover by re-positioning the furniture. This is a great way to change things up.
Happy Spring Cleaning!
What other Spring Cleaning projects do you like to do every year?
–Mellie
Leave a Reply