Oh summer, you verdant minx. So flashy with your hot dogs and bikini clad pool parties. The pageantry of blooming pomegranate trees and cookouts en plein air… I would love you so much more if only I could get some work done.

The no school thing is really getting in the way of my posts. Sorry about that. Let me make it up to you.

 It has the Brancusi flava.

Thrifting: it’s what I do with the kids when we’re all hiked/biked/plum swum out. And what did I spy with my gimlet eye, at goodwill no less? Oh it’s just a giant solid bronze signed sculpture by Russell Jacques, who makes giant outdoor sculptures like these:

Maybe I should take my sculpture outside for some fresh air and kumbaya on the guitar? No?

So new sculpture is crazy good, but also heavy, pointy, and highly dangerous to my curious georges. Would that I could let it live on the coffee table, because it looks amaze with my fancy Jenny Andrews Anderson painting.

PS, I will be revealing more of that hot action later, after curtains that will surely transform my life come in.

Until then, enjoy the sculpture photoshoot that pajama time Ike and I did together. He’s a right good little Vanna White.

I don’t know how he got so big… it floors me how long the days are, but short the years.

I’m off to spend some more QT time with my boys, because maybe the no school thing ain’t so bad, after all.

In the meantime, sorry to get pimpy but please do drop by and say hi if you enjoyed this post. I may hoard room tours until fall if everyone is too busy summering it up to glue themselves to the computer and read blogs.

Gather ye beach balls and koozies while ye may.

Hey guys, thanks so much for entering the Graham and Brown wallpaper giveaway! It was super fun to read about your decorating hopes and dreams… sorry I’m about to crush most of them.

Hopefully not permanently?

Anyhow, comments are now closed and I ran the numbers through the magical doohickey, bee bopp booo bing zam:

Wow, that is just weird. Numbers be crazy, yo.

Congratulations to Lauren, you are the winner!

“Would love to win Bao in cream. I’m buying a small fixer upper apartment and would love to use this in the entry.”

Sounds like an awesome plan to me… I would slap some crazy art on top and call that space done.

HUGE thanks to Graham and Brown for hosting this amazing giveaway!

For everyone who didn’t win, here is some wallpaper porn to get you through this trying time. Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Happy Friday!

[pinterest]

So, remember the crazy rug I bought in a parking lot? The one from the sale that showered dirt all over my babe and surely gave me a bacterial infection of some sort? This rug?

I couldn’t decide whether to keep or sell. You guys were not impressed by its Versacesque glamours, but I saw something in there… My spidey senses were a’ tingling. Lucky for me I have awesomely smart blog buddies. Cassie sent me a link to Lisa the Rug Chick, a textile expert who knows EVERYTHING about rugs. Read her blog… it’s amazing. Anyway, Lisa was kind enough to email me with her take on Mystery Rug.

Drumroll, please…

1940s Spanish Savonnerie.

Exciting! I mean, it wasn’t a $4 million 18th century French Savonnerie rug:

But it was something.

In the meantime, I had grown very attached to Mystery Rug. I had plans.

Master bedroom Versacefication plans.

However, Lisa the Rug Chick had some not so glamorous news: Mystery Rug was very dirty, and because it was woven on a jute foundation it would need to be painstakingly hand cleaned by a professional. No hosing this 100 pound beast down in a driveway unless I wanted it to disintegrate. Plus the jute edges had some unraveling and repair issues… plus Ben hated it.

I called Deep Eddy rug cleaners and they quoted me $425 to start — which is not insane to clean a giant dirty antique rug — but I didn’t want to put more money into that particular rug.

Sadness.

I decided to try to sell it, so on a whim I emailed Nazmiyal Rugs in New York. They deal in all sorts of amazing antique rugs, rugs that cost more than my car.

Aaannnnd, I got an immediate call back. They wanted to buy it at the price I had set… If you watch Pawn Stars you know that dealers make you set the price because dummies like me have no idea what their stuff is worth. Therefore I had probably underpriced the rug.

I emailed another dealer, who told me the rug was possibly Austrian. Then I looked up Austrian savonnerie rugs and found this one on Ebay. Looks similar, right?

It’s $12,000. Kinda more than I asked for. Ooops.

By this point I had already entered into an email contract with Nazmiyal. Hey kids, a written email agreement between a seller and buyer is legally binding.

Good to know, right?

And then I had to ship my rug off to NY on approval, which was nerve wracking. What if they stole my rug AND I was out shipping???

They didn’t. They are professional dealers with a fancy brick and mortar location in New York. My little ole rug was chump change to them. Also they were very nice and reassuring.

Cherry popped. Check cashed. Tidy profit made.

Nazmiyal will make a tidier profit, but unlike many people I have no issues with selling to dealers. Yes, they will sell your item for more (a lot more) than you sold it to them, but they have massive overhead to finance PLUS they have invested time and money into building a clientele.

I mean, I could have put my rug on Ebay and asked $10,000, but who would buy it?

Probably nobody.

I hope.

So now I am a tiny bit richer and minus one rug…. guess what that means?

Rug shopping!!!

Probably for the living room (AGAIN), because I think this is going to happen:

I feel pretty good about this plan. I mean, I LOVE my blue rug, but I don’t love it with the red persian rug in the living room.

Two rugs in the same room is just tricky town.

We will discuss this ad nauseum later… I have 700 pictures and opinions ready to share regarding this subject.

And someday I will finish my next how to post on buying rugs. Sorry I am so slow.

In the meantime, don’t forget to enter the mega Graham and Brown wallpaper giveaway!

It ends Thursday night.

Do it.

Friends, I don’t do giveaways very often. On a daily basis I am inundated with emails from press people trying to get me to review off brand paint and eco toilets, but I try to keep the blog strictly related to things I want to get in my house right now.

Things like wallpaper.

Me and wallpaper have a lifelong love affair going on. It started when I was a wee baby, swaddled in a muslin cloth tacked together by wallpaper paste, rocked to sleep with the sweet smell of wet wheat in the air… fast forward to today, when I have a closet filled with stacks of wallpaper samples. Sometimes I stroke them gently at night and whisper sweet nothings into their ears. Don’t tell anyone.

All this to say I am a little excited to be giving away THREE ROLLS of Graham and Brown wallpaper designed by Steve Leung!

The winner will have her/his choice from any of the six Asian inspired patterns designed by Steve Leung in any available colorway.

THREE. ROLLS. BAM.

That’s enough to paper a huge feature wall, or perhaps a small powder room, foyer, or laundry room.

So, basically $80000 worth of wallpaper… or maybe $255 USD. Whatever. That’s a lot of wallpaper. Let’s check out the players, shall we?

There’s Jiao, which has a touch of the De Gournay about it. This color is very pretty in real life, but other colors are also available.

This is Bao, which means treasure. Adorable, because my Chinese bud always calls my kids “bao bao.” Anyway, the rep sent me a black sample but I lovessss the cream on cream. You can’t tell from the picture but this pattern is very textured.

Hua has some metallic interest in the branches.

Juan is so sparkly it’s like a disco in your eyeballs. I am kind of obsessed with the gold on cream colorway.

Ling has great scale, and is slightly textured. All of the colors are nice. Karly likes the cream on cream but I think the red might be Chinese Chippendaletastic.

And then there’s Mai.

Let me tell you about this honey of a paper: you can hang it vertically or horizontally. It has a teeny touch of metallic interest, but not Kim Kardashian much. All the colors are great — the white and silver is dreamy and versatile, but the charcoal is dramatown and would be perfect in a foyer.

In short, I want to marry this paper and I’m a little annoyed I agreed to give it away rather than keep it for myself. 100% serious.

There better be a lot of entries or I will be tempted to create 100 anonymous email addresses and enter my own contest.

Kidding! Hahaha.

Ha.

I took some pictures of the samples the rep sent me so you could kind of get a sense of the texture on the papers.

Jiao/Mai

Bao/Hua

Juan/Ling

All of these patterns are nonwoven paste-the-wall papers that are so easy to hang even a dummy like me can do it. And if you tire of them, just peel the paper off the wall in strips.

You need this in your life.

Contest rules:

Please peruse the available selections here and pick a fave pattern and color. Leave a comment telling me all about your favorite paper and what you plan to use it for. The winner is free to change her/his mind so don’t get all analysis paralysis on me… I’m really just curious and y’all know I love to talk decorating projects.

That’s it! Leave a comment and you are entered for a chance to win three rolls of Graham and Brown wallpaper designed by Steve Leung.

The contest ends at midnight central time on Thursday, May 16. Winner will be announced on Friday.

Let’s blow it up, people.

[Graham and Brown]

I am an art hoarder, and it’s becoming a problem. I literally have racks and stacks of original paintings, antique prints, vintage posters — I love it all as long as it’s good. I tell myself I NEED it because I have acres of pale, lonely sheetrock that must be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? Art to the rescue.

As many of you know, I did time in art school so I am kind of a picky snob about what goes on my walls. I’m not above quirky vintage charm, but if I’m hanging contemporary art it has to be on point… yet cheap. I’m not exactly Saatchi and Saatchi, displaying my Damien Hirsts alongside my Cy Twomblys. Enter Society 6, 20×200‘s cheaper (and still operating? wtf?!) cousin.

I’m not gonna lie… a lot of the art on Society 6 is just cheesy digital stuff with words on it. Sorry, guys. I’m not saying you can’t make art with Adobe Illustrator, but it’s not easy — definitely not as easy as the sheer volume of digital art would indicate.

When I’m buying prints from places like Society 6 I try to buy things that were originally created as two dimensional works designed to be reproduced, and that usually means photographs. Or in the case of Beth Hoeckel, collages created from photos.

This one is maybe a litte homage to John Baldessari. AMAZING in a girl’s room.

I’m thinking about buying this for our bedroom. Kind of a cross between Richard Hamilton and bauhaus collage.

I would kill to see this in a super refined space. The colors are amazing and it could totally be a room maker.

I am devastated this only comes in 17″ square, because I have a client who needs this to be 40×40… I may even email the artist to request another size.

I’ve ordered prints from Society 6 before and was pleasantly surprised at the print quality. Everything is on heavyweight matte (almost watercolor) paper and the inks are fairly saturated.

The prints are open edition, so these aren’t investments the way 20×200′s signed editions are. However, if you need cheap awesome art for your wall, here it is.

All art by Beth Hoeckel. Buy it here.

Also:

Tune in next week for an AMAZING wallpaper giveaway! Like, a ton of wallpaper.

It’s going to be supercallafragelisticexbealladocious good.

Happy weekend and stuff.

I cannot even begin to tell you how glorious the weather in Austin has been… high 70s, crisp breezes, the scent of roses and freshly mowed lawns wafting about. The weather here is usually so HELLFIRE HOT by now that this spring seems extra special and it’s really hard to do anything other than lie on the ground and stare up at this:

I love it so much that I just want everything to be green right now…

Green kitchens.

Green walls.

Green wallpaper.

The perfect green accent.

In fact I’m considering a little living room switcharoo to bring in more green, inspired by this:

Hot. Sex.

Should I maybe put my new blue/navy rug:

In the front of the living room:

And put the red rug in the back of the living room?

Please pardon the bad styling and photography. I did move about 500 toys out of the picture, so I kind of rule.

I’m not convinced red rug will be ok next to those green chairs (it’s definitely not as vibrant as my picture shows, but it’s still dark raspberry red), however blue rug could be looking mighty fab with my giant fancy new Jenny painting:

And some new pillows made from this Robert Allen fabric:

I don’t know… it’s tough to say how this will look in real life. Could be good crazy. Could be bad crazy. That’s a lot of squiggly lines and a lot of black and blue together.

When I can pull myself away from tree gazing I hope to move some things around. This is just the first configuration I’ll try… I have a lot of big rugs now.

Of course, I also want more big rugs.

Of course, I also also want to stay married.

What do you think the chances of success for this new look are?

More than 50/50 = furniture moving time.

[images via pinterest and my house]

Ebay. It is the mother. The life giver. The font of greatness.

At least I think so.

Today I straddle the line between insanity and genius. You may decide I have jumped the shark, what with my bad iphone picture posts and now this. I say you may be right. I may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for. Turn out the light…

Don’t try to save me.

So the other day I was cruising one of my favorite antique/thrift shops Uncommon Objects and this peeped out from behind the rabble, and by rabble I mean piles of lampshade forms, taxidermied hooves and dusty crocheted blankets. Who buys that crap? Anyway, obviously it caught my eye because it’s NEON and AWESOME. And it was only $49.

For some reason (poverty) I didn’t buy it and I’ve been sad ever since. Enter ebay. Same poster, $19.

They had this one, too.

Now I am kind of a snob about art. I try to only buy original stuff, but I’ve been known to buy vintage posters now and then. I really like how heavy and good these looked in person. Nice paper stock, tight line quality, super saturated colors.

These are so crazy… I imagine them in an all white room with fantastic molding. Here and here.

I am obsessed with this, but it’s $120. Still cheap, but not dirt cheap. It would look fabulous in my entry way, though.

I don’t know. I just couldn’t help myself. I love cats.

This is would shine like a star (duh) in a light cool colored room.

Hand screened. Big. Well under $100. Amazing colors.

There are a lot of ridiculous tweety bird penis booby posters out there, I can’t lie. But there are some real gems, too.

If you buy one, please skip the blacklight unless you are 19 and need some ambiance to go with your acid and Meat Beat Manifesto.

Not that I would know anything about all that.

In other news, sorry I haven’t posted any big awesome house tours or rug buying guides yet. The babes have been so sick it’s dumb and I have to type most of my posts one handed.

Hopefully on to bigger and better things next week.

Until then,

Peace. Love. Other trippy stuff.

Hi guys. I started writing another monster post on buying rugs but then I got overwhelmed and more than a little worried I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. When I began studying maps of the Middle East and researching the major rug weaving cities of Iran I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew right now. I’m just a little OCD like that. I’ll get around to it soonish but I need to let things incubate for a while. In the meantime, I highly recommend this article on buying rugs.

Also, I am super busy because my kids have succumbed to cold #857 this year. Both are encrusted with all manner of viscous fluids and it’s a full time job keeping that bizness off my new rug.

It’s much prettier (darker and less contrasty) in person but I’m already stressing about how overwhelming it is in its new space. I foresee a major rug and furniture rearranging party on the horizon.

 Lest you think me a heartless bastard who only cares about my furnishings, here are my cute little people. It’s good that they are cute because they destroy everything I own.

Which is why my fabulous Jenny Andrews Anderson painting is still safely rolled up and not actually lying about on the floor like this. I can’t wait to get it stretched and hung over my fireplace because it is HUGE and I love it.

Speaking of art, I’m selling this large (4 ft) 70s abstract painting. Austinites, email me if you’re interested.

Still speaking of art, I’m slightly obsessed with this amazing gouache painting I didn’t buy. Why didn’t I buy this? Oh yeah — because I already spent all my fun money on art and rugs.

Strict budgeting is largely sponsored by the impending (soon? I hope?) kitchen redo we’re saving for. I’ve been to see Sanders for paint help and I think I’ve narrowed the cabinet colors down to three choices. We shall discuss this ad nauseum later, but for now just know that babies love Sanders.

Last but not least, I got new business cards! Bryan Keplesky designed the logos and Karly Hand designed the cards. I think they’re kind of President of the Illuminati awesome.

Publicly launching ones photography and decorating career at the end of a series of crappy phone pictures is undoubtedly a smooth move. Please do see my photo site here and my latest house tours here and here if you’re interested in hiring me to work for you.

You know where to find me.

Welcome to Rug University… or more likely, Rug Kindergarten. The art and craft of weaving carpets is centuries old and even though I have spent years off and on reading about rugs, my knowledge is just a blip on the radar of fiber history. People who really know their stuff usually possess deep generational knowledge about the subject. I am just a crazy person who loves rugs and I’m sure I’ll say something stupid somewhere. Oh well. What I can offer you is information on how and where to buy, and hopefully how not to get ripped off.

Deal? Let’s do this.

For this series of rugucational posts I’m only going to deal with woven natural fiber rugs, or rugs that do not have a latex/canvas backing. They could be made of wool, or cotton, or other natural fibers, but they have no backing and the design is visible on both sides.

This is the backside of my handwoven (knotted) malayer rug.

I’ve been moving away from tufted (latex/canvas backed) wool rugs and towards handwoven wool, cotton, and jute rugs for a while now. Reading The Rug Chick’s blog about how shoddily (and stinkily) many tufted rugs are produced totally confirmed a lot of my fears about mass produced wool rugs. I’m not saying all tufted rugs are poorly made — I’m very happy with the Safavieh leopard rug in our front room:

I’m just saying I prefer to spend my skrillaz on rugs that have the potential to last for decades… if my boys don’t burn holes in them first, that is.

Anyway, today let’s talk about woven rugs that will go with anything. These are your cheap and chic workhorses that generally come in under $5 sq/ft — sometimes a lot less.

It’s a good idea to decorate a room from the ground up. If you choose your rug first, you’ll never have a problem finding fabrics and (even easier) paint colors to coordinate. Working from the opposite direction really narrows your opportunities for interesting and hopefully cheap rugs. Trust me — I found out the hard way.

This post goes out to all the peeps like me who need a rug to play nice with the stuff they already have.

A solid field is the very easiest thing to decorate around. I suspect that’s why jute/sisal/seagrass rugs are so popular. Plus they can be pretty inexpensive and they hide dirt well. Of the three, seagrass is the best to clean but the most expensive, although you can custom order seagrass rugs in any size with dozens of border options at The Perfect Rug for a very reasonable price. Jute is second, and sisal is the pits of hell. To maximize your cost/benefit ratio, you can buy jute and get it from Overstock (wait for a 10% off sale and try to stack a coupon on top) or get it from RugsUSA during one of their 50% sales.

This handsome guy is $180 for an 8×10 HERE.

I don’t consider these to be forever rugs, but natural fiber rugs definitely deserve consideration. I like how they can casual up a room and add a natural element, which is especially nice if you don’t already have wood floors.

Plus these rugs layer up right pretty and they can be so cheap.

A very simple geometric that runs edge to edge is the next easiest to decorate around. I put wool Moroccan beni ourains in this class. MFAMB just did a round up on cheap sources HERE so I won’t cover that ground again.

Any furniture, any colors, almost any fabrics will do. Your rug will be an unsanitary disaster in no time, but that’s another story.

I am constantly picking pollen and leaves out of the West Elm faux beni in our very low traffic nursery. It sure is cute, though. Don’t spend much on this type of a rug, and for the love of all that is holy buy something small enough to shake it out every now and then.

All over patterns (like the one I just bought, for example) are also relatively easy to decorate around because they have no borders and no center medallions — things that can make furniture placement tricky.

Tony Duquette makes it look easy, but let’s face it — nothing about this room is easy.

If you have a wonky inflexible furniture plan and buying a rug is stressing you out, an allover design is your friend.

I don’t hate this Madeleine Weinrib rug, but I personally would never buy a giant cotton rug I couldn’t throw in the washing machine. You want wool — delicious stain repellent wool.

Dhurries (aka kilims, aka flatweave rugs) are relatively inexpensive because they use fewer materials than full pile rugs. This wool dhurrie came from overstock and it’s dirt cheap — $262 for an 8×10. Even Ikea can’t beat that price. Overstock actually has a multitude of well priced wool flatweaves in various colors and patterns. I’m partial to striped or tribal versions, personally… trellis and chevron are feeling pretty dated.

This looks like it might be a wool kilim. I would hit that. Dhurries are nice because they can be used on both sides before they need to be washed. I like to think that a wool dhurrie rug could last for decades if padded, rotated and treated to the occasional bath.

If you buy a dhurrie, a good rug pad is a must. I’ve shopped around and this one from overstock is the best I’ve found. It’s soft, squishy, does the job and doesn’t mark up my wood floors.

The next level of quality and design represents a fairly significant jump in expense. I’m talking about Tibetan type rugs.

I wish I were talking about Tibetan tiger rugs, but a) they aren’t cheap and b) they don’t exactly go with just anything.

Who am I kidding? This goes with everything.

But really I’m talking more about tone on tone hand knotted wool Tibetans:

This may or may not be a Tibetan, but they are often woven in simple muted patterns.

This one is silk and wool. Unlike other handwoven (hand knotted) wool pile rugs, they do not have fringe.

Warning: there are a lot of creepy 80s Memphis wannabe patterned Tibetan rugs out there. Don’t buy them.

Anyway, “Tibetan” rugs are interesting in that they aren’t made in Tibet (because of Chinese occupation). Most are made in India by Tibetan and Nepalese workers… or not. The could also just be handknotted Indian rugs made in a “Tibetan style.” I don’t really have a problem with that as long as the wool is nice quality and it’s handmade. Just don’t pay $8000 for a rug unless you get an appraisal.

Shouldn’t be an issue, right?

I bought mine off Ebay from Pakobel Rugs. He doesn’t have any Tibetan/Nepalese (he spells it “Napalese”) rugs right now, but you should check back since he gets them in waves. I HIGHLY recommend him — totally professional and courteous.

In the meantime, may I suggest this 8×10 handknotted Tibetan style rug for $375? So awesome with kelly green and white. Available HERE from brandrugs on ebay.

I would buy from them because they have a 100% positive feedback rating. Also, all good pro ebay rug dealers will give you a 14 day return option. It’s a safety net that could be expensive to use (I have return shipped a rug and it’s not cheap), but it’s good to have just in case. Also, use paypal in case you need an extra level of protection for disputes.

The last category of neutral rugs I have the strength and endurance to tackle today is the beloved Turkish Oushak.

This super light super subtly patterned rug is an antique Oushak (Ushak). Every decorator and their mama wants an antique Oushak because it goes with anything and it adds that certain handmade, natural/organic element every room needs.

Problem is, a real antique (80+ years old) Oushak is expensive… even on ebay. You can, however, buy a newish one at a competitive price. They will most likely be knotted in India or Pakistan (Peshawar), but they still have the soft colors and large scale patterns that work with a variety of decorating styles. I like Rug Emporium’s listings:

He lists new Oushak type rugs every day. Some are blue, some green, some very light and neutral. I’d wait for a light neutral one with an allover pattern (no center medallion) to pop up. 9x12s tend to close in the $500-700 range, which is not bad for a large hand knotted rug.

Just fyi, Oushaks can also come in fabulous pastel colors that may not go with everything but are still awesome and amazing. Here’s a rug I wish I had bought… it’s an actual vintage Turkish rug and it is HUGE (like 10×16). It went for over 1K which is totally worth it, but totally out of my price range. It sure is good, though.

Can you even imagine how long it would take to make a giant rug like that?

Forever, that’s how long. And that’s why hand knotted rugs are expensive.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for reading this giant long novel. I hope you’re still awake.

For my next installment I’m planning a post on purchasing Persian type rugs. Excitement! And I also have a post in the works about other kinds of fancy antique rugs.

Let me know if there’s anything specific you want to see and I’ll try to work it in.

Until then, happy shopping!

[Images via pinterest]

Hi friends, I know I know… I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth there. But the weather in Austin has been FABULOUS and that only lasts for about three weeks every year, so I’ve been trying to soak it up. And do masssssssssssive amounts of yardwork. And do some spring cleaning and stuff.

In other words, it’s cocaine and hookers exciting around here.

I’m just kidding, CPS. Please don’t take my children.

Anyway, what IS exciting is my new rug:

Hand knotted Nepalese wool and silk goodness… It’s kinda cray but the pattern will hide a multitude of sins in a high traffic location, and it was dirt cheap for a 9×12 ($375).  It should arrive on Wednesday, so you can bet your sweet booty I will be waiting like a dog at the door for the postman until then.

In the meantime, I already have 800 million rugs yet I find myself continuing to bid on a few beauties here and there… (I really hope Ben isn’t reading this post).

I wanted this 10×14 1920s Khorassan rug something painful, but it closed at approximately $700 more than my top bid. Thank bejeebus, because if it had closed $5 over I would have gotten down on my knees and punched the bare floor on its face.

And then there is this cheap vintage Turkish rug on craigslist which I am FORCING myself not to buy, even though it would be so cute in Ike’s room… but I already have a rug in there. Right???

Basically I need to admit that I have a new addiction to add to art, lighting and chairs.

I have contracted the rug bug. It is very serious and difficult to cure.

I think the solution may be to pass it on to you?

Would you be interested in a vaguely edumacational/rug porn filled post about rugs and where to buy them?

Or should I put my next energies into showing you new rug in its new home?

As I type this Luke is trying to chew a hole through my computer cable, just so you know how much free time I have right now.

Rugs or house updates?

Thanks for reading!

Thanks to everyone for your super smart rug suggestions on my last post. I followed your links and made moodboards and generally drove myself banana sandwiches trying to fit all the moving parts and variables together… do I switch this rug or sell that rug? Layer something small with seagrass or save up and spend big money to buy a big rug? Truth is, I tend to buy antique rugs that may or may not fit in the spaces I had planned for them. Hand made rugs are like pieces of art, and I need to have an emotional attachment before I can have a financial relationship.

I mean I would totally marry this rug, which is very similar to some antique Turkish rugs Karly and I saw at Round Top last weekend. Prices were INSANE, like we were shopping at 1st Dibs instead of a country flea market. The rugs were superb, though. I’ve never seen that kind of quality in person and I wanted to roll around all over the rugs like a dog in heat.

I am also not above having an affair with this rug I’m watching on ebay right now. It’s huge and very old and ridiculously expensive and I LOVE IT. Too bad I’m not rich.

Anyway, I’m not the most practical when it comes to buying rugs for myself, and I just wasn’t feeling anything I could find in my budget. So when reader Jill sent out the bat signal that a local antiques gallery was having a meganormous rug sale in a parking lot, I thought what the hay… I’ll load up the babe and head out early to see what I can see.

 The calm before the storm…

I felt like I had just strolled into a third world country when I arrived, and by strolled I mean I stupidly brought my sweet seven month old baby in a stroller to the windiest, dirtiest, cheapest place on earth. And then something about the vast mountains of concealed fabric transformed me into a frantic suburban hyena panting after the scent of blood, tossing the place in order to see every single rug there (luckily/not luckily I wasn’t the only one).

Totally embarrassing.

I knew there must be something good in those stacks, but every time I forced a nice worker man to dig out the very bottom rug, it inevitably turned up to be a filthy pee stained lime green and brown persian rug. Barf.

Y’all, I have NEVER seen that much dirt anywhere, and I have peed in poop troughs near diseased chickens and pigs deep in the Mexican back country. There was dirt in my teeth (!), dirt on the baby’s face, dirt all over my stroller cum vaguely handy shopping cart… I had to hose that sad boy down with lysol after I left.

The rugs were so dirty you couldn’t even tell what color they were. D.I.R.T.Y.

And then, magically, Jill showed up. She probably didn’t recognize me beneath the layers of sooty filth, but she did recognize my very unhappy baby — the baby I brought to contract some exotic infectious disease from the dirt.

Mother of the year. That’s me.

Thankfully Jill turned out to be a super nice, very normal person with excellent taste. To wit, she pulled up this shockingly not too filthy rug. And then she passed it on to me. Behold.

But what is it??? It’s huge for one thing — 11 ft square. It’s also very old, like maybe 100 years? It’s wool and it weighs a million hundred pounds. The seller dude said it was hooked. And that’s about all I know.

For scale.

It’s not discolored, the field color is actually taupeish and the shadows are from folds.

I have since super mega vacuumed the rug, and I think it’s miraculously not too dirty. I mean, it’s old but not scabies dirty.

But what the what is it?

I know some things about rugs. Like anything I care about, I have obsessively researched Persian rugs since I first started buying them a few years ago. I can tell the difference between a Kerman and a Hamedan (kinda easy, I know), and I can tell you about abrash, kpsi, desirable colors and patterns, etc, but this here is not a Persian rug.

Is it an early American hooked rug?

A French Savonnerie?

Perhaps Spanish?

Or maybe even Chinese?

Here’s the back. I think the foundation is jute… or maybe burlap?

Does anyone know anything about this here rug?

Because I’m not sure whether to keep or sell. I think if I keep, it will live in the bedroom and the bedroom rug will move to tapestry town.

But if it’s worth some real money I might sell it and buy something more in line with the rest of my rug collection.

Or maybe it’s super awesome and I need to learn to love it?

If only I knew what it was…

Anyone?

Keep or sell?

[top image via because it's awesome]

First of all, THANK YOU for commenting on Luke’s room tour! Sorry I rewarded you by taking the next week off for spring break. I’m a jerkface.

So, I have a grand history of choosing, unchoosing, pondering, debating, analyzing, and general indecisiveness when it comes to rugs. Either the size isn’t right, or the color is unknown, the pattern scale is off, or woolen tumbleweeds threaten to eat my home. No matter which way you slice it, unless you plan to just jute it up all over the place, rugs are hard. And if you’re like me, you have champagne taste on a beer budget, which SRSLY compounds the problem. It’s not like I can walk into abc carpet or the rug company and throw $10,000 at the problem. What’s left is the west elm outlet — which I have found to work well for scatter rugs — or the internets.

Thank the bargain gods for ebay and overstock. I love them long time. But buying a rug you’ve never seen and will be difficult at best to return is a major pain in the warp and weft.

Buckle up and let’s discuss the latest debacle, shall we? Some back story, first:

This? Oh, this isn’t the problem. Sort of. See I bought this vintage Malayer rug off ebay a few years ago and I love it and its jewel toned, crumb hiding, hand made awesomeness. The problem, as we have discussed previously, is that it’s too small for this loooooooong room:

I know. I can’t believe our house looked like this right after we moved in, either.

To recap, the table is gonezo and now this lives back there:

Except of course I have compulsively rearranged stuff n things since then. Der. The credenza and the white console swapped places, and now I have a terrible desk but a better looking back wall.

I am all about practicality, aka I need a real (super awesome) desk.

Anyhow, the runner was a little overpowering and a lot slippery, I really really really need a rug back here to protect our floors from little boys and their floor gougery. Plus something soft and plush would be nice to sit on and play legos and other annoyingly small and many pieced games little boys like to play.

I previously tried a 6×9 rug, thinking it might fill the space.

I was wrong, and we all know where that rug ended up.

Here’s the thing: what I really want is a 13×18 persian rug to fill the whole room, but even on ebay cool ones price out in the 2k range. Since the kitchen has me on mega budget 2013 with my belt strapped on so tight I fretted over a $7 Ross dress, 2k is just not going to happen. So I went off and spent $300 on another ebay rug that is too small.

Hey Erin, aren’t you a professional photographer? Why, yes I am. But I snapped these iphone pics to show Karly right after I rolled out the rug, and then I promptly rolled it up. And threw out my back. So enjoy these gorgeous works of art. And enjoy the baby bouncer, most of all.

Also, please do not assume the console styling is for realz. And Gilbert, the leopard pillows are just for you.

6×10 hand knotted deliciousness… too small, right?

I should return this, right?

I need a 9×12 that fits almost end to end with the front room rug I already have, right?

Now I just have to find one that I like under $500. Also it has to flow with the other rug. Also also it has to look good with the back room stuff.

This?

This?

This?

This?

This?

Sike! None of these are going to be under $500.

Rugs are dumb.

Please help me by either finding a cheap wool 9×12 that I like (I am tres picky), or by hiring me to take pictures and/or spend your money on decorating projects…

Assuming you have more money than me, that is.

Thanks for reading today’s novel. I will be laying down and icing my back now. Me and my phone await your solutions to all of my problems.