Whether it’s an oriental rug or a shag carpet, your area rugs need quality love and care to stay clean and keep your space inviting. Caring for an area rug is essential to keep it like new for the longest time. While they put the whole room together, they face a lot.
If you’ve invested in a good quality rug, it would be a shame for it to lose its aesthetically appealing qualities. That’s why we’ve prepared a guide to keeping your area rug or carpet well cared for.
1. Regular Vacuuming
The first tip is a no-brainer, but it’s good to go over the basics. Vacuuming your area rug regularly ensures that there is no dust built up over an extended period. This freshens it up every day. Dust can be dirt carried by the air coming from outside, dirt carried in by shoes, and human or animal hair and dander.
All these things are undesirable and create many problems. Over time, they could make your rug smelly or cause bacteria to grow among the carpet fibers. Dust is usually an allergen, and dusty carpets can become terrible housemates for people with allergies.
2. Carpet Grooming
While vacuuming is something everyone knows about, there’s an extra step that you might not have heard of called carpet grooming. Carpet grooming means brushing out your rug with a rug brush. A rug brush is a hand-held brush with either metal or plastic bristles.
Using a rug brush before vacuuming helps dislodge any dirt caught in the fibres allowing it to be cleaned more thoroughly. It also brushes each fiber apart, making the carpet look neater, thicker, and fluffier. Carpet grooming should precede every vacuuming to make the vacuuming more impactful.
3. Wash Stains Out Immediately
Did something fall on your carpet? Drop whatever you’re doing and address it instantly. Remove whatever fell on your carpet as soon as you can to prevent a stain. Next, take your rug brush and some carpet shampoo with a little water and work the area.
Add a drop of carpet shampoo and some water to activate it, and start rubbing your carpet brush back and forth in all directions to remove the stain. If you do not have carpet shampoo, you can improvise with detergent or even dishwashing soap. However, that does run the risk of bleaching or discoloring your rug.
4. Professional Rug Cleaning
While you may be a champion at grooming and vacuuming your rug daily, it’s important to get an area rug washing done professionally once in a while. When your area rug or carpet gets professionally cleaned, it’s like you brought home a brand-new carpet.
This increases the longevity of your carpet and keeps it looking it’s best the longest. Regular carpet washing every few months gives you a clean slate. Now it becomes easier to groom and vacuum. Any stains that you weren’t able to remove will be gone as well. So find a reliable carpet cleaner near you.