With More People Preferring a Personalized Fit, Custom Rug Fabrication is Taking Off
Most people turn to tailor-made clothes not just because of their high quality, specific style, or special fabric but mostly because of how they fit — more attractively and comfortably than anything off the rack. The same goes for carpeting and, more specifically, rugs. While there are plenty of off-the-shelf options, they’re never quite as good as those cut and finished according to a customer’s unique space and preferences. For those who want their houses to have just the right look and feel, custom rug fabrication offers that tailor-made fit.
Recently, we’ve noticed targeted ads on Instagram about a company called Ernesta Rugs that specializes in custom sized rugs. Their website is great, selection is fair, but they seem to fall short of true rug customization. All Ernesta offers are custom area rugs sized to the inch rather than foot. Although helpful, they are completely missing the mark on the demand for custom area rugs. They don’t install stair runners or make runners for stairs that turn. They cannot cut inside corners to accommodate jogs or angles. They can’t even install or fabricate anything as it turns out! After some digging, we learned that the people behind Ernesta Rugs is the same people that were the brains behind Peloton. They are not a rug company. They are simply an order fulfillment service, a middle man. So when you’re considering a custom sized rug for your home, don’t hire the delivery guy. Instead, hire the carpet guys, the craftsmen that are actually making these rugs in The Carpet Workroom.
The Shift Toward Custom Carpeting
The latest colors, coolest patterns, and most sought-after textures tend to make the headlines when it comes to trends in carpeting (e.g. neutrals, muted colors, and sustainable materials featuring natural fibers). Lately, however, the ability to customize rugs and runners has become a trend that’s likely here to stay.
With countless combinations of design elements available, rugs are highly versatile, highly effective elements in interior design — setting the foundation for a room or acting as the perfect complement to the decor. From large area rugs, to long runners, to smaller accent pieces, custom carpet fabrication also lets you choose the size, shape, and finishing touches, for a truly unique piece to help set the tone you’re looking for.
Custom Rug Shapes: Rectangles & Beyond
One of the biggest advantages of a custom-fit carpet is the ability to choose practically whichever shapes and sizes you desire, which is great because, after all, rooms come in all shapes and sizes. Some rooms even have curves, poles, air vents, and other potentially awkward features. The more creative options, the better, and that’s what custom rugs offer when dealing with your unique space. Furthermore, custom-shaped rugs often have a greater impact on a room’s visual appeal and overall dynamics than off-the-shelf ones.
The shape you should choose depends on a number of factors including the room’s dimensions, furniture, and other decor. Just like with colors and patterns, rug shapes can be used to either complement or tastefully contrast furniture and other decor in a room. Mirroring the overall shape of a room or a key piece of furniture — such as a rectangular rug for a rectangular kitchen or a circular one under a circular coffee table — is a popular choice that’s hard to get wrong. However, contrasting rug shapes can help create a more modern and dynamic look — such as a circular chair over a square rug or a long oval rug in front of a rectangular couch.
Because a majority of spaces and furniture are square or rectangular, rectangles and squares are the safest, most common shapes and offer the greatest versatility, whether visually breaking a large room into different sections or accentuating long, narrow spaces. However, common and safe doesn’t always equal the best fit with your preferred style.
From round to oval, circular rugs are favorites for a more casual, cozy, and contemporary atmosphere. They’re often used to make smaller spaces appear larger and for pairing with circular furniture in modern family and dining rooms as well as children’s spaces such as play rooms, bedrooms, and nurseries.
A great choice for unconventionally shaped rooms, oval rugs are popular for quaint and country-style settings. Combining the extended look of a rectangular rug with the circular stylistic elements of a round rug, they can be found in many hallways, foyers, sunrooms, and other smaller-sized rooms.
Rugs can also be cut into a variety of polygon shapes besides squares and rectangles, like triangles, octagons, and hexagons, which are great for playing off other distinct lines in a room. They can even be trimmed to conform with corners, banisters, and other elements. Other different shapes such as diamonds, stars, flowers, and amoebas are also possible, though the more unique and complicated the shape, the more it will likely cost.
Getting the size of your rug just right is essential for it to look just right, and that often depends on where it’s placed and what it’s accenting. For instance, for extraordinarily open spaces, a large circular rug can create an outstanding focal point and statement. Likewise, a small rug or multiple small rugs may make a large room appear hectic and disjointed. Size is an important consideration when dealing with larger pieces of furniture, such as with a rug for your dining room when it needs to be large enough for the table and chairs to comfortably fit on them.
Finishing Touches
Another huge benefit of customized rugs is the potential to add carpet binding, accessories, and other finishing touches — such as nailheads, stair rods, and serging yarn — for even greater personalization. Adding accessories is especially popular with stair runners, great for making them even more unique and visually exciting.
Using a machine or a heat-sealing process, carpet binding involves attaching a strip of fabric or vinyl to the edge of the carpet in order to prevent fraying and create a finished appearance. While narrow cotton binding is the most common and easiest to maintain edge, wide binding creates a more noticeable border effect. Serging is a popular and modern solution that creates a hand-sewn look that’s more affordable than binding but it can be less durable, hence less suitable for high-traffic areas.
Carpet nail heads are small, metallic fasteners used to add a decorative touch to edges. Unlike other binding options, they are not sewn but pushed through the rug using a hammer which also prevents fraying.
The finishing options you choose will depend on your personal preference and the overall look you want to achieve as well as the durability, maintenance, and cost of the finished product. For examples of rug finishes from our customers, visit our gallery page and click on “rug finishes.”
Understanding Your Space
One of the most important steps to custom-fitting your rug is to get a good grasp on your room’s dimensions and layout. This includes measuring your space, identifying focal points and high-traffic areas for your placement, and considering furniture and decor that will be on and around it.
When it comes to area rugs, bigger is typically better. Contrary to what some may think, an expansive rug is better than a small one when wanting to make your space look and feel bigger. However, you’ll want to maintain a nice balance between the size of your rug and the amount of wall-to-wall carpeting or hard-surface you leave to breathe beneath it. Custom rugs and runners are meant to compliment your flooring, not cover it up. (If you’re trying to hide damaged or outdated flooring, you should probably consider replacing that at some point.) For an area rug that takes up the vast majority of your floor space, it’s wise to leave at least an 8”–12” gap between the rug’s edges and the walls.
Custom Stair Runners
Like rooms, staircases come in countless varieties — some straight up and down, some windy, some with unique angles. With their multiple steps and sometimes complex angles, stairs take a bit more effort to measure and custom fit with the perfect runner. Furthermore, unlike rugs and floor runners, stair runners are attached to the floor, making it even more important to get right before installing.
Measuring for stair runners involves a number of factors including the number of steps, each riser and tread, and taking into account any winders and landings. Turns in stairs are typically measured separately because they often have different dimensions. When the stair runner is cut to fit your stairs, you have the option to leave space on each side (usually 2”–6”) for showcasing the hardwood underneath and creating an aesthetically pleasing contrast. Check out this short blog for more in-depth details on measuring your space.
Custom Rug Fitting Process
Custom fabrication is both art and science, taking expert hands and diligence. At The Carpet Workroom, the custom-fitting process is a relatively simple one, yet we take great pride and care to ensure that every step goes off without a hitch.
Your first step is to choose the carpeting’s overall look and feel including color, pattern, and texture/material. The Carpet Workroom has seemingly endless combinations to choose from, and our expert team can assist you with picking just the right options. You may have a specific size and shape already in mind, but it’s wise to make sure they’re optimal, whether that involves drawing out a template or having us stop by to measure your space and assess its nuances.
After choosing the carpet, we have a roll of it shipped to our warehouse where we inspect it for quality and accuracy, then suggest binding based on colors and pattern. Once you decide on a binding, we carefully cut the carpet to your desired shape and size, and attach the binding to its edges. When finished, we roll the rug up, wrap and box it, and have it delivered to your front door.
Whether it’s an area rug, floor runner, or stair runner you’d like personalized through custom fabrication, we at The Carpet Workroom will do everything we can to ensure you have an enjoyable, seamless experience.
For help choosing the best designs, shapes, sizes, and finishing touches for your custom rugs, contact us today with any questions you may have, for a custom quote, or to set up an appointment at one of our showrooms. Our expert fabricators and design consultants look forward to helping bring your custom rugs to life.
