Why Buy A Hand-Made
Afghan Rug
As Home or Office Decor:
A good quality hand-made rug adds a touch of elegance to a room - just look
through any magazine offering
accommodations at the high end of the
market. You're almost certain to see a
beautiful hand-made rug on the floor or a
tapestry adorning a wall. You'll see
them in the lobbies of the most prestigious
offices. In well-preserved stately
homes, handmade rugs are a feature of the
public room, and they are no longer the
exclusive preserve of royalty and the very
rich. A growing number of people are
seeing the floor as too important to neglect
when setting the mood of a room. Because
rugs are not permanent fixtures, you can
change them more easily than changing the
wall-paper or painting. This is why many
rugs have survived more than a hundred years -
they are only on the floor for part of each
year.
You can find them on natural wood floors, and marble floors. In many
modern homes, a plain wall-to-wall carpet is often adorned with a rug or
decorative carpet. In older homes, they make cold floors warmer.
Rugs are sensual art forms. They demand to be touched as well as
looked at and admired. Putting your feet onto a beautiful, thick,
soft rug as you get out of bed... it's a nice start to the day.
As
a Wedding Present:
When we give someone
a wedding present, we usually want our gift to be special - something that
will be appreciated for a long time. Crystal-ware breaks; kitchen
appliances, while practical, aren't usually very exciting or memorable;
money shows a lack of thought or imagination on the matter; but a beautiful
Afghan rug, or perhaps a set of smaller ones. Rugs help make a house
into a home. They put a stamp of individuality on the place, and
they can be easily moved as the couple move to houses better suited to
their circumstances.
Another nice aspect is that there is no chance of another guest buying
them the same present - no two hand-made rugs are identical.
The idea might seem novel to many of us today but it a tradition that stems
back over the centuries. In fact, some rug patterns were designed
with this purpose in mind. Pomegranates, for example, are symbolic of a
wish of many children to the marriage. In Turkey, young women would
keep and display their very best woven product to show the quality of their
work and worth as a wife.
As Investments:
Discerning investors are now beginning to see good quality hand-made rugs
as a commodity that performs as well as money in a bank. If you buy
at a good price and take good care of them, you'll always get you money
back.
This hasn't always been the case. There was a time earlier this century
when you could find very fine hand-made rugs put out for garbage collection.
The owners had decided to "modernize" and use the newly developed machine-made
carpets. Unfortunately for us, this was "once upon a time"
- before most of were born. Now, many of those same rugs change hands
for tens of thousands of dollars.
Now we live in different times. Skilled craftsmanship is not going
to get cheaper - especially as the number of people deploying those skills
is dropping. Western civilization is starting to reach into many
of the traditional rugs making areas and weavers, dyers and spinners are
finding easier ways of getting the same level of income.
In years to come, we can reasonably expect the good quality hand-made rugs
that are still available today to be valued at much higher prices.
The sight of a nice rug on the floor is so much more visually attractive
to look at than the number at the bottom of your bank statement - besides,
you cant really share the latter with friends and associates.
As
Anti-asthmatic Treatment:
Asthma is on the increase in western civilizations generally and even strong,
very athletic people are not immune. We don't even know the whole
story of what causes it but...
Dust mites are one of the most commonly named villains in the fight against
asthma. These are the tiny creatures that live with humans, eating
skin flakes that fall from us as we move about a room. Their dropping
are suspected to cause the problem.
We know dust mites are more prevalent in houses which are heated and where
the air is not bone dry. Basically, they like the same conditions
that we do.
We can remove many of them from our mattresses by vacuuming when we change
bedding. Getting them out of carpet is a much more difficult problem
because very few vacuum cleaners are capable of removing them and their
droppings.
With rugs, it's a much simpler matter, you can take outside into the sunshine
or cold air for a while. Temperature extremes kill dust mites.
Of course, you can always send rugs away and get professionally cleaned
from time to time. This also kills them.
As Acoustic Treatment:
Adding rugs to the floor or the wall of a room can be a useful way
to experiment with the acoustics of a room when you're setting up a hi-fi
system. Many speakers need plenty of power before they come to life.
The problem is that rooms are often not large enough to sustain these power
levels comfortably. Rugs are an excellent way of soaking up sound.
At the same time, they're easier to move than other soft furnishings and
much more attractive to look at than other acoustic treatments.
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