Today, we are doing a deep dive into rugs. We are talking about everything from knowing the right rug for your space to actually keeping them clean, especially when you have pets.

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Show Notes:

Read our blog post: Do You Wear Shoes In The House? (And Three Reasons Not To!)

How do you know what type/style of rug works for your space?

Make sure high traffic areas have patterns that are forgiving

Look at how it needs to be cleaned and know if you can honestly clean it that way

How do you know the correct size rug to get for your space?

Use a measuring tape

Determine the function of the rug

Consider how durable it is

Where do you buy rugs from:

Etsy

eBay

Apple and Oak

Rifle

Rugs USA

Dream Rugs

Loloi Rugs

Tips for cleaning rugs:

Sparkle baking soda on rugs and then vacuum to absorb odors

FOLEX for spot cleaning

Put a towel underneath the rug before spot cleaning

Power wash them outside

Favorite Rugs:

Elsie – Vintage Turkish Rugs

Emma – Turkish Rugs

Tips for tripping over rugs:

Get a quality rug pad

Put rug stickers on the corner of the rug

Screw them down

Sparks Joy:

Elsie – Vintage roll top desk with the top covered in tiny gold frames

Emma – Domino’s pan pizza

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Episode 231 Transcript:

Emma: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast. Your cozy comfort listen. And today we are doing a deep dive into rugs. We are talking about everything from knowing the right rug for your space to actually keeping them clean, especially when you have pets, messy kids or maybe you’re just clumsy like me and you spill your food on your rug a lot. There’s a lot of reasons why your rugs can get dirty.

Elsie: I love this subject so much. I think that people on the internet, this is a generalization, can be very negative about rugs. Like it’s one of the things it’s like dusting. It’s one of the things that people just get so in their head about. And I personally think there’s, there’s hope for your rugs. Ok. We have a hopeful, optimistic attitude about rugs. We’re not going to be negative about it.

Emma: So I’ve never dusted in my life. I’m fine. It’s fine.

Elsie: Yeah. Well, we’re freaking out about dust. It’s like if you, if you’ve never been an influencer, this is what it’s like, it’s like you post a picture of anything and people are like, how do you dust that? How do you dust that? Why do you dust that? Why I wouldn’t want to dust that? And it’s just like me neither. Dust.

Emma: So I don’t problem solve.

Elsie: I’ve just said before in my life, but it’s not like a, it’s not like a ritual that’s keeping me up at night.

Emma: No, I mean, yeah, if something’s like, obviously cob webby, sure that doesn’t really happen much. I don’t know what to say.

Elsie: Like, I don’t know, dusting, if I had to make a list of the top 100 problems in my life, dusting wouldn’t make it onto that list for sure. It’s just not even like a significant enough problem for the top 100.

Emma: I’ll be honest, it gives me a little bit of humility too because I’m always like, oh, I thought I was this pretty clean person. I feel like my house is pretty clean and then I, I’m like, I’ve never dusted before. I’ve never cleaned my oven before. Like, you know, just things that you see other people doing on the internet and you’re like, oh, maybe I’m not as clear. I was, I’m good. I’m ok. But like, you know, I give it more like a B minus. I was thinking I was more of an A minus and like, maybe not so much. I’m good with a B minus, by the way, in the, in the class of cleaning your house, I’m like, I’m, I’m fine with that. Everything’s good. Nothing’s a problem. So, whatever, but yeah, I don’t dust, give yourself whatever score you want.

Elsie: Don’t worry about it. I’m not worried about it. Good. Ok, so, yeah, this week we’re going to talk all about rugs. So the things we’re going to go through are like determining the right rug for your space because oftentimes they’re expensive, they’re a big investment. There’s something you save up for. How do you get the right size? Where do you buy them from? Tips for cleaning rugs? Our favorite types of rugs. So yeah, we’ll go through all this. And I think before let’s do a little bit of a, like a history of rug buying, history of rug buying. So my first r this is so funny, like in our early blogging days, there was like this certain IKEA rug that every blogger had and it became like a thing where we used to post a lot of other people’s home tours on our site and it became a thing where people would complain about the rug. And it was like, here’s that rug again. And so yeah, my first experience in buying a rug was like, I thought it was fancy because I bought a big rug. This is always the story.

Emma: You buy your first car and you’re like, this is the nicest car I’ve ever owned. 

Elsie: But then later you get a rug I ever bought was one of the ones from urban outfitters. That’s basically a thick piece of fabric. You know what I mean? And you just lay it out on your floor and it looks like a rug and you definitely don’t want to use it without a rug pad because it’s a, it’s hazardous, slippery will die. And we had that one in our first home and it was like, maybe Chevron or like, it was something of that time. And then I started buying the very fuzzy white rugs for a couple of years and I learned from those that I wanted to be a shoes off household. I was trying to think of the word and I was right or no. Yes. Yeah. We learned from those that we wanted to be a shoes off household because we got like the trail of footprints situation around where our coffee table was. And yeah, I learned that basically the value of shoes off and like the point of it. yeah, and we’re American. No shame to anyone, do whatever you want in your own home. It’s not common in the US. But I personally just, it just makes me feel like I have less cleaning to do and it makes me feel like I don’t have to worry about buying light colored rugs, which I like light colored rugs. Sometimes.

Emma: It’s just when you have kids who are like, learning to walk to and they’re crawling a lot. It is nice to have more. Yeah, clean floors than it’s nice having clean floors. But I have dogs, they kind of ruin it too because they go in and out and, you know, that kind of, yeah, let’s not think about that.

Elsie: Let’s not think about that. You know, I have to just turn my brain off to my dogs and I’m just thinking that my house is clean still. I’m just believing it is.

Emma: I mean, it’s going to help to do shoes off.

Elsie: It helps, OK, 100% it helps with rugs and stuff and it makes, it makes things last longer. You can read studies about it. We wrote a blog post back in the day about it. If you’re interested, I’ll just leave that up to you. But anyway, so the first thing we’re going to talk about is how do you know what type or style of rug works in your space? So there’s so many choices out there. So let’s talk about size function durability. And then my personal like heart, soul searching question that you have to ask yourself is how committed are you to your rugs?

And I’m, I’m dead serious right now.

Emma: That’s a real question that you should ask.

Elsie: So we did, I did the fatty phase and which those are beautiful rugs.

Emma: They’re gorgeous. I think I completely understand why people gravitate towards them and get fixated on them because they look like this soft fluffy cloud on your floor and it just, I get it like the appeal is there the ones that are made of real fur, like the synthetic ones.

Elsie: I can’t, I’m not speaking, you’ll know by the end of this episode, I’m not a synthetic rug lover. And for me it’s not for me and I understand if you’re vegan, you’re honestly trapped. I get it to each their own. That’s tough. True. I think the toughest categories for a vegan, one of the toughest categories for vegan might be rugs and that’s probably not shoes, what vegans think at all, but probably not anyway.

Ok, so I am very committed to my rugs after I learned after I got the little footpath, then, you know, I had to try cleaning it in the bathtub, which is what you do. You take your big fat, you put it in the bathtub. I would like literally. Yeah, that’s the thing that I think is really cool and that I want people to understand about natural fiber rugs.

So like usually that are made from animals, like wool, things like that. You can wash it like you wash your own hair. I would literally use shampoo and shampoo the rug and then wring it out and then lay it on my porch for a day or two and let it dry and then it’s good as new again. And that’s the beautiful thing about those rugs. So I do think that there’s like different levels of commitment. And then after that, when we moved to our first house in Nashville, I got these two huge white rugs. And I think this was like the most negative comments I ever got was when I put a huge white rug in my dining room and we were about to adopt a kid, which I don’t think people knew that at the time, but I will say this. We used that same rug. Actually, I don’t think it was the same one. I think it was different ones, but whatever, we had a white rug under our dining room table for three houses in a row. So for like five years and it was fine. So I do stand by that, but I did spot clean it myself, like get down there with the Folex. And so what I would do is put a towel underneath it, spray it with the Folex, get it real wet, let it dry, do all that, all those steps.

Emma: If anything ever got on it, I’ll actually say I kind of think kids in my experience so far is not as big of a problem as dogs or adults with wine. Dogs has kids. You can put like a mat under their high chair or under their seat. You could kind of like plan for them. They’re going to drop things on the floor and they’re learning to eat, you know, but I feel like it’s pretty easy to catch them. Whereas dogs peeing on rugs randomly or like me tripping and spilling red wine on something you can’t plan for that as easily. And those are the problems.

Elsie: I think that’s true. I have one time in my life spilled a full glass of green smoothie all over a couch and a rug. I just kind of everywhere and that kind of thing happens like once in a while you trip and you’re like, no, I have to just get through it. Ok. So I think, ask yourself, how committed am I to this rug? If you’re very committed, you can do anything like I have right now on my stairs, an almost white stair runner and it’s fine. It’ll be there for years. It looks still really good. And I do kind of actually have some texture to it though and some design to it.

Emma: I will say that if you get something that’s like a solid, almost like a piece of carpet that’s gonna be more, you know, upkeep and keep it perfect than if it has a slight design to it, like some kind of damask or some kind of, you know, traditional whatever, like you could have anything but that will save you sometimes with a little bit of spots because then you, you don’t notice the spots as much, you can clean it so you make sure it’s clean. But if it doesn’t quite come out, it’s like, well there’s some texture there.

Elsie: So you know, I agree. This is a good point too. With everything in your life, from rugs to clothing, to wallpaper, to like quilts on your bed. There are forgiving patterns and unforgiving patterns. Yep. So, always be aware if you’re choosing something that’s forgiving or unforgiving where, like, if you get like a little stain on it, is it gonna, like, ruin the day or is it going to like, almost not even matter? Like, there, there can be a huge difference. This is what I would say too about like buying rugs, like finding out how committed you are.

Emma: It’s the same thing when you’re buying clothes, if you’re buying like some new tops and they’re all dry clean only and you’re just not a person who goes to the dry cleaner or dry, you know, washes by hand and hang dries or, you know, you’re like, you know what, I’m not gonna do that, then just don’t buy those tops. It’s no big deal. But if you’re a person who will do that, then you don’t really need to criticize your friend who’s buying all this dry clean only stuff because they’re gonna

take it to the dry cleaner or do whatever it is they want to do, they’re into it. So it’s like, great. So just know your level and like other people could have a different level than you and that’s fine. Maybe you will watch closely your rugs and maybe you won’t, so you can buy something different and it’s the same thing, clothes, all my clothes go in our washing machine. I just don’t buy things that are dry clean only because we go to the dry cleaner, like, twice a year. So, it’s not a good idea for me to thine own self pare.

Elsie: Yeah. Know yourself. I love it. Ok. So, all right, let’s talk about size for a moment. Ok. So when you’re determining the size of a rug for a room, like first of all, get out your measuring tape, you’re not doing this without a measuring tape. You’re not guessing. I have seen like the funniest freaking stories if you guess you will be wrong. Ok. I’ll just give you that as a rule and if you accept that as a rule, I’ll save you some trouble. Measuring tapes.

Emma: Don’t cost a lot of money. You should have one in your house. If you don’t own a measuring tape, you should buy one. You can get cute ones. You can get ones that fit on your keychain. They’re going to be small, but I would just just buy a measuring tape measure.

Elsie: I will measure for a freaking bath mat. I promise you. It’s just worth it every single time. And I’ve had, I have returned rugs. It sucks. It’s annoying. You can do it, but it sucks for me. I buy basically every single rug online. I like, I, I just don’t have a place in my town where I find good rugs and, like, it’s, yeah, I’m not going to go to every store to the market or something.

Emma: Like it happened that’s true. Or like, even a garage sale. I’ve had that happen. Oh, my go. Really? It was like, you know, a fancy, you know, just, it worked out. It was like, buy on ebay but to measure.

Elsie: But you still need to. Yes, you do unless you’re just collecting them for fun. Which I had one of those collections in my garage and I had to go away at my last house. I had to let it go. You don’t need a collection of like, 15. You’re a hoarder. So, so, ok, measuring every time this is common sense. But I promise you if you’re like, I think in my bedroom, I think an eight by 10 will be fine. You might be wrong and it’s like one size up might have made it so much better or, you know, you might get it where it’s just barely, barely, too big and then you can’t use it.

Emma: It’s a doorway, weird or something. And you’re like, oh, if I had just gotten one size smaller. Yeah.

Elsie: Yeah. And I have, I have gotten, even last year when we moved, I got some of my rug sizes wrong. It’s just so easy to do. So. Never believe that you can do it without a measuring tape. Ok. So the second thing I would consider is function. So I used to be super, super super into like the fuzzy rugs and I think I just eventually was like, I want something easier. So, and the vintage rugs for me, those are my special something because they are the easiest and they last the longest and they’re just the most durable. They’re easy to clean all of the things. So I would consider the function and just like a couple warnings. So new rugs that are made to look vintage are so easy to find online. You can find them all over Amazon for what seems like a better deal than a real vintage and I get that but be very careful because those rugs are, they’re literally made of plastic and like you cannot clean them. So if your dog has like a accident, your rug just might be ruined forever. Like they’re just kind of the worst. Like that’s my worst experience is I love, I love cheap stuff and I’m, I am a cheap person in some ways but just not about rugs. I just think like spend a tiny bit extra and get the real vintage and you’ll save yourself so much, you know, like waste cause it’s, it’s sad to throw away a rug to throw away a big huge rug that’s like has one stain on it.

Emma: It just makes you feel so bad, especially if you haven’t had it that long and it can be kind of a whole thing, like, in some areas it’s not necessarily, like, easy. It’s not like your trash person will pick it up. So you have to figure out how to take it to, you know, some kind of facility or, I don’t know, there’s just like, problems there. So it could be, it could be a whole chore that’s going to take up a chunk of your weekend when you could be doing something fun.

Elsie: Yeah.It’s like my one thing I could boycott forever is like a plastic, synthetic rugs. Then the next thing to consider is durability. So let’s talk about Jute rugs for a moment. I have been like, I love jute rugs. I think they’re so cute. They come in cute patterns. They have those ones on Etsy with the scalloped edges. I fall for them every time and I do think that Jute rugs are good for some situations but like huge caveat, they are not durable.They don’t recover from a stain. Well, and they’re not good for high traffic situations and I don’t recommend them outdoors because they can get easily ruined by getting wet or mud or something. If they don’t, they take a long time to dry out.

Emma: Yeah. So then I think they can get kind of mildewy or like, you know, just not great for them.

Elsie: I love how they look though. And they’re also really, really affordable. So I have had good experience with them in a sun room place like that where there’s like, lower traffic. Yeah, it’ll be great. But for an outdoor rug, maybe I should link my poor drugs this time. I found like the greatest poor drugs this time. They are cute. They kind of look like you but they’re not, they’re just easier to clean and they are synthetic for sure.But they’re, they’re the right thing for the right place. So, yeah, I’ll link to those. Yeah. Durability is a huge thing that it’s really hard. Like I had this amazing rug at our pink house and Emma’s dog. Yeah. Any. Anyway, it was so sad. We tried, we tried everything, we tried fluxing it so many times that I accidentally damaged the wood floors underneath. Oh, it’s so much worse than just getting rid of it. So, anyway. I don’t know if I’m even making points here or am I just telling stories about the rugs I’ve bought, I don’t see how that’s not points.

Emma

Ok.

Elsie: All right. Let’s keep going. What’s next? Where do you like to buy rugs from?

Emma: So, we’ve kind of talked about Elsie hates synthetic. I do own a few synthetics in my home. But, you know, I agree with her point how they get ruined and it can just be more waste. But I also can understand if you already own some and you’re just going to keep them until they die. I get it because I’m doing the same thing. So, anyway, but where do you like to buy rugs from? There’s all sorts of options. We’ve already mentioned that we buy most of our rugs online. So where do we buy?

Elsie: So, for vintage rugs and search by color and size, I buy them almost always on Etsy and ebay, it’s very easy. My most common search term that I use is Turkish Ruck. And so I’ll just put like pink Turkish rug or neutral Turkish rug. And then I’ll put in like the size and I think if you just put like eight by 10 or nine by 12 or whatever, then you’ll get other sizes like it kind of knows like it won’t always only give you that exact size.

Emma: Yeah, it’ll give you, yeah, close to it.

Elsie: Yeah, with runners you often need to pay attention because sometimes they’re, they’re not all the same width. So be careful with that. But I like mixed match or mixing and matching runners. I have a lot in my house. They’re all different. I like the feeling of that and I think that it’s like a good vibe. And then also I have to recommend my friend’s store in Nashville called Apple and Oak. She sells vintage rugs. She sells mostly Turkish a little bit of Moroccan. She also sells new rugs and the thing I love about her, she has a beautiful shop in East Nashville. If you’re in the area, you have to go. It has other like, gifty stuff. It’s really cute. And also if you’re furnishing a new house, she will like, bring rugs to your house, like she’ll bring a large, yeah, like a bunch for you to try. I did that in my first house and it was so great with vintage. I think it’s such an opportunity when you can try it out because a lot of times it’s non refundable and that’s understandable. But then you have to be really careful and really confident about like, you know, buying from ebay, especially the pictures are sometimes not the best. So every once in a while you just like get a bad one. That’s not what you thought. Yeah, the coloring is kind of off or I don’t know, like the, I think most sellers will show you if there’s like a spot that’s kind of messed up but not great.

Emma: But sometimes it’s worse than you could tell from the photo. Wasn’t that they were being deceitful, just didn’t quite translate. And so that’s always a bummer when you’re like, well, I’m stuck with this now. How can I hide this under some furniture?

Elsie: Yeah, I would honestly say like vintage rugs are most of the time, the same price are less than a new rug and higher quality. So I highly recommend it. I think it’s worth the risk. It’s worth the extra work. Ok. But if you want to get new rugs, I will give you my new rug recommendation. I get it. Sometimes you just want something affordable. Sometimes you just want the same rug in two sizes, things like that.

Ok. So I love the rugs on rifle. I have a bunch of them. They do have wool and synthetic rugs. They have these ones that are called printed rugs. They make really good bathroom rugs because they look like a vintage drug. But it’s kind of just like a flat printed matte. They’re very affordable and they’re just, like, good for places where, I don’t know, you like an entryway, like high traffic places where something could get ruined. And then I will link to my porch, my magical porch rugs. They’re brown and like, sort of like a brown and tan diamond pattern. And they’re just like, really great for a porch specifically. They’re the best porch rug I’ve ever had. Is there any other rugs you think we should talk about?

Emma: I’ve bought a lot of rugs if we’re talking about new rugs and, you know, affordable options and easy to shop. I really like rugs. USA, I’ve shopped there a lot of times and I’ve never been disappointed. I’ve always got what I bought. Yeah. And I think it, if there’s a lot of jute and they have, you know, obviously synthetic ones, but they also have some natural fiber ones. You can look, but sometimes you like, are looking for just a specific color and a specific size and you don’t really like ebay is not doing it for you. So I feel like it’s kind of nice to shop on a site that’s like, ok, they’re going to have all the sizes and all the colors and I can get something that’s going to work for my space and be done with this, you know?

Elsie: Ok. And then a couple of times in my life, I’ve got a dream rug, so I guess I could talk about the dream rug. Yeah, I got a Jonathan Adler rug whenever I was in my new money era, that was like a bunch of Jonathan Adler stuff.

Emma: That’s what she wanted to do.

Elsie: It was a magical time. I had to leave that one when we sold our house furnished last year and I would still buy that rug again. It has kind of like a maize pattern. It was like a wool rug, but with kind of this subtle maize pattern, it was really unique. And then also from Laloy rugs, I’ve had a couple of their Hye rug collection and those ones are really nice. If you just want a fuzzy, neutral, fuzzy rug. I do. I love the fuzzy rugs in our house. Now, that’s more historical. I’m not as much getting fuzzy rugs but for any other style of house, I think that they are so cute. So, anyway, those are my dream rugs and then I have this one Etsy rug that is like, it’s up in our kids bedroom. Have you seen that one? Oh, no, it’s a 10, it’s a 10 out of 10 and it comes in different sizes. If it’s still there, I will link to it as well. But anyway, overall, most of my favorite rugs in my life were vintage or a rifle, which is so funny. Like, I don’t because rifle is not, it’s a paper place with like stationery gift wrap and stuff. But I don’t know why they have the greatest drugs. Like they are, it’s beautiful for me. 

So next step, well, we’ve talked a little bit about some tips for cleaning, but let’s just do a whole section.

Emma: Now that’s like tips for cleaning rugs or like ways people can preserve rugs because we’re kind of talking about rugs, like you’re going to buy it and you’re going to keep it for a long, long time, which I think is the way to go. Like, spend a little more, keep it much longer. It’s less wasteful. It’s kind of just less shopping.

Like it’s nice. Nor do we, like, change a rug. It is annoying. It’s so annoying. So how do we keep them clean? Because, you know, most people have pets, kids, they spill things, whatever you walk on them. It, you know, you have guests over and someone tracks in some mud, whatever. So how do we keep our rugs clean?

Elsie: Ok. So if you are a shoes on household, I would just recommend vacuuming a lot more than other people. Just vacuuming those paths around like a TV, dining room table entryway, like stair runner. If you have it, things like that just need to be vacuumed way more because there’s always like little bits of stuff from the outdoors getting pushed into the carpet rugs.

Emma: And here’s a tip on vacuuming whenever I’m about to vacuum all the rugs in our home, which we don’t have tons of rugs. But when I’m about to, I will go throughout the house and Sprinkle baking soda on the rolls. Baking soda is probably most of, you know, is kind of an air freshener. It will absorb smells like I put a bowl of baking soda in my fridge all the time. There’s always one in there and I’ll change it out periodically because it kind of absorbs it, like suck in all the garlic smells and whatever else. So I’ll Sprinkle that on rugs throughout the house so that it gets to sit for like 30 minutes an hour or whatever. You know, it doesn’t sit for days because again, I have kids and pets and, you know, you don’t necessarily want baking soda just sitting on the floor forever, but I’ll Sprinkle it out on all of them and then I’ll start at the beginning again and vacuum it up. So I’m vacuuming the rug anyway. So it’s a really barely an extra step and it can kind of help to freshen any smells. Nice, soak, mud, pets, whatever. We have a lot of dog hair in our house.

Elsie: That’s a great tip.

Emma: It’s cheap. You probably already have baking soda in your house. 

Elsie: Ok. So spot cleaning, spot cleaning is like your best friend if you have large rugs that are made of natural fibers. So I had this one time when I fex too hard and I damaged, we had like super light wood floors underneath and it got like a dark spot and I’m like, it’s fun because it’s under a place where a rug will probably always go.

But I’m still mad at myself about it. So my tip for that is to put a towel underneath while you’re doing all the fixing because sometimes it takes many rounds like this rug was not recoverable, which I didn’t know. So I was, I was going, she was really trying to say that really hard and I’ve had that before. Also, we had a carpeted room in our last home that it was like in the movie theater and one of the dogs did something horrific and it came out with Folex, but I was working on it for like a week.

Emma: Folex is kind of a miracle, but it sometimes will take a few rounds. It depends what has happened.

Elsie: It’s worth it though.

Emma: Yeah, I’ll also say outdoor rugs and some certain types of synthetic rugs. Now, you have to plan for a sunny day, but you can power wash them. That’s true. Take them outside and if you have a power washer or if you’re renting a power washer and doing your whole outside or whatever, you can power wash your rug and then kind of place it somewhere or hang it somewhere is more ideal in the sun and it’s not going to rain for a few days and let it dry out in the sun.

Elsie: Now, let’s talk about cleaning your rug outdoors. So I mentioned before you can do the bath, the bathtub. That’s kind of annoying though because then you still have to get it out of the house afterward if the rug is bigger than you, once it gets bigger than you.

Emma: So if you have a way, if you have a big plastic tub or something that you can take outdoors and just fill that up swimming pool or if you have a little soaking pool yourself, it’s always an option.

Elsie: A lot of times. Colin and I did this several times when we were, I just like, I’m very committed to my rugs. Ok. So a couple of times it wasn’t necessarily a power washer, but we would use like the hose attachment. Yeah, like the spray part of a hose was perfect strength for like the big white rugs for shampooing it really good. Really? Get it in there because you want to get all of the, I’m talking about, you want to get everything out right? And then spray the sh*t out of it and let it, you know, drip, dry, drip, dry, drip dry and then, yeah, like, leave it out there for as long as it takes a day or two and let it dry before you bring it back. You could blow dry it.

Emma: But it’s going to take a long time. So I think it’s, I could, but I wouldn’t blow dry a rug. It would take so long. I don’t even blow dry my hair for me, just like, hang it over the side of your porch, do whatever you have to do and it is worth it, I think.

Elsie: Ok. So, Emma and I have had different experiences on rug cleaning services. I think you said you had a good, or was that your couch?

Yeah.

Emma: It’s called Missouri Rug. If you’re in Springfield, Missouri or nearby. And they will do rugs obviously, but also furniture. So they’ll take your couch, like, take it away, clean it, bring it back and I’ve had great experiences with them.

Elsie: So I’ve had a couple of times where I took a rug and it still came back, still smelling bad. So I don’t trust the rug cleaning services. I would prefer to just do my own Diy rug cleaning. But, you know, maybe it’s probably a case by case basis, I would swear that they just didn’t even clean it. Like, it just smelled exactly the same when they brought it back. So, maybe it was, maybe they just lied. Maybe they forgot. I don’t know. That’s weird. Anyway, that’s all my tips for rug cleaning. Just when you buy it, think about how you’ll clean it and expect that that will be necessary at some point. So that you don’t have to beat yourself up. You know, because like spilling a glass of wine or a green smoothie or having dogs that just do dog things or Children, you know, it’s, it’s a part of life that’s obviously like 10,000% worth it. But I think having a plan, it’s so frustrating to throw away a giant rug. I have not been more mad than almost anything when I had to throw away that big giant. You know that, so our favorite rugs for me 1000% it’s vintage and my number one is Turkish rugs. So Turkish rugs are what you usually see. Like almost all of my rugs in my house, the traditional looking ornate rugs and they come in a lot of different colors. Like they have really light ones that look more boho, they have dark navy and red ones that look more traditional. So, yeah, that’s a good, a good time. I also love Swedish rugs. And there’s lots of other styles that are good as Well, most of my favorites are from ebay and they’re Turkish.

Emma: I don’t go for the fluffy ones quite as much, which tend to be more Moroccan because they just, I don’t know, I think I’m not quite on the commitment level to giving them a bath as much as much. So, a lot of mine are Turkish and most of them are from ebay. But I have this pink one that’s currently in our bedroom. It used to be in our kitchen now it’s in our bedroom and I have this really colorful one that I recently got like in the last three months. That’s in this little library room. I think I put one photo of it like in my Instagram when I was showing the book remarkably bright creatures, you can see it behind it. Ok. It’s really cute. It reminds me of this rug I had years and years ago. So I think I do gravitate towards these certain colorful rugs, but they don’t fit everywhere in my home. So when I have a spot that’s kind of like tucked away or just for me, that’s always what I gravitate towards.

And we have this ongoing thing in our household where my husband doesn’t love rugs. I think in part because it is kind of like upkeep, you got to clean them all the time or they look dingy and then also like they can be a bit of a tripping hazard or just annoying in some ways.

Elsie: Let’s give tips for that.

Emma: Yeah, on tripping hazards. So, for me, we’ve kind of just gotten to a place where, like the areas of our home that are super high traffic, like our kitchen, we don’t have a rug in there. We just don’t. And it honestly, it would be beautiful to have one, but also it is so easy for me to just sweep and swiffer in there that I kind of don’t mind not having one. And we have the era where we’ve got little kids and I’m like, you know what, this is honestly easy and I don’t care. So it’s totally fine by me. But there are areas of our home that are more like my spaces, like my office, my library room, my side of the bedroom and they all have rugs. So we kind of have this mix throughout our house.

Elsie: You have a rug only on your side of the bedroom, it’s only on my side of the bedroom. What I have to see that it’s kind of like how it fit because we have a couch, a love seat over on that side.

Emma: So it kind of is like in the love seat area, but that happens to be like the side I sleep on. So anyway, yeah, it’s kind of funny but I have another friend. I won’t out her but her husband’s the same way. Like she loves rugs. He doesn’t. So it’s just kind of a mix, you know, it’s just kind of how it goes. You got to find your way with whoever you live with. Yeah, everyone’s got to love their space.

Elsie: Must love dogs. Must love rugs.

Emma: But let’s give tips about tripping over rugs because that can be a thing, especially vintage rugs or rugs with the tassels I think can cause kind of issues.

Elsie: Ok. So my first tip, this is obvious, but just in case like a quality rug pad. So if you don’t have a rug pad, that’s the problem. Like rug pads are super important, they can hold your rug in place pretty well. And like there’s, there’s better and worse ones. So ones that have a little more thickness I think are, but still that rubbery plastic texture is my favorite kind.

Emma: It’s kind of grippy. It’s almost like the kind of stuff you use when you’re opening a jar and you have, we can put links to this stuff and then there’s like the stickers that you can put in the corners of the rug.

Elsie: So I have had floor damage from them. So I’m on the fence with them and I know a lot of people say they don’t cause floor damage, but they did for me in my mcmansion strips, it usually doesn’t strips. It’s a love and hate relationship. But I think if you’re in a situation where your floors either aren’t brand new or they’re a little more worn in or you don’t care or maybe you’ll just get lucky and you won’t have any. The thing that’s cool about them is when you have the edge that flips, it fixes that and the edge that flips is a kind of a hard problem to solve it.

Emma: Kind of is, it’s almost like you’re setting heavy stuff on it all the time, but then you’re tripping over the heavy thing. You know what I mean? Like, it’s just weird, like, you fold it back and try to get it to say, but then it’ll curl back up for some reason and you’re like, dang it.

Elsie: Ok. And then the third tip I have is for, this is like a little more extreme. But I also think it’s for me, maybe I’m more comfortable with this than with the stickers now. But on my porch rug they flip up bad. Like, we live in a very windy place and I just humid too, which can really, and they’re just flipped up. We’re kicking down the edge of a rug every day. Absolutely constantly. So I decided that I’m going to screw them down on every corner and I wouldn’t probably do that in the house, but I probably would in a carpeted room. I think that it just depends on what your surface is underneath and how forgiving. Yeah. For, for the porch, for me, I’d rather have one hole than potentially use the stickers and like, I feel like they could cause more damage. So anyway, yeah, I’m gonna screw them down. I think it’ll be probably like, super worth it. I like it. Cool. I guess that’s all of our rug stuff. So hopefully this was encouraging, like, I guess I just want to reiterate like we know rugs can be expensive and don’t think that we’re just saying get the most expensive rug. I’m saying like balance, think about the factor of the price, the size and the durability. Think about all three of those things. Not just one is my advice.

Emma: If you’re moving into a new home and you came from a smaller space and you’re needing like basically a lot of rugs don’t be afraid to just like do that over time so that you can spread out the cost if you’re wanting to get rugs that are going to last to like help with waste and just get things that you’re going to be really happy with. It’s ok to have a room that doesn’t have a rug for a while.

Elsie: I agree. It’s not a big deal like it’s easier to clean in some ways.

Emma: So just, you know, think about it and you’ll find the perfect one for. You. Keep shopping on ebay and Etsy, you’ll find it. You know, I would say it’s better to wait and get one that you love that you’re going to keep, than to get something that’s filling a space that you’re not going to throw away after a year and it’s going to be a whole hassle and it’s just waste and, you know, there’s no point just leave it with no rug for a while.

Elsie: Yeah. I hope this was helpful. and yeah, we can’t wait to see, send us pictures of your rugs. I am an enthusiast for it. I think it’s such a fun subject and it’s like a thing that makes house feel like a home.

Emma: It’s cozy. Ok, let’s do. We’re going to do a sparks joy segment. So do you have anything that’s been sparking joy for you lately?

Elsie: I do. So I have been getting my home ready for the historic home tours in three weeks from now and I am really working.

Emma: I can’t wait to come and troll. You’re going to come to my house for real.

Elsie: Yeah, I knew you got tickets loudly. I didn’t think I thought you were going to go to the other ones. I’m going to go to all of them. Well, I can’t wait to hear your comments. That’ll be great. So in my office are on my desk or like I got this. So I got this vintage roll top desk. It’s my special someone. It’s spooky, it’s spooky, it’s haunted. It sort of has secret compartments. It’s magical. And anyway, the top of it, I have covered it in little tiny gold frames they’re pretty easy to find. So, my idea was that I would sort of like, get some antique ones when I come upon them. But that’s hard to do. And I’ll probably, like, put those up front and then I got quite a few from places like Amazon. I got a few from anthropology, just like, you know, regular places like that just to like dollar tree. Just kidding. I would though if they had them. I don’t know. So it’s just, it’s just lots and lots of tiny gold frames and the size is probably like two by three for the smaller ones and then four by six ish, somewhere in that range. And yeah, the thing I love about it is it’s just like, it looks like this, like beautiful collection.It’s a way to put family photos because I’m kind of like, I like putting family photos up in the house and I want to, but I don’t want them to be cheesy. Like I feel like it has to be like a certain way for me to accept.

Emma: You have a lot more art on your walls too so it can be hard to mix in a way. So it’s almost like you need other little spots for them.

Elsie: In my office it felt like the right spot. So anyway, tiny gold frames all linked to some of them and they are definitely sparking joy for me just because it’s like the easiest way to put a bunch of memories with my kids somewhere where I’ll see them every day.

No, I love it.

Emma: I’ve seen people, the smaller ones too, they’re like two by three. They might even make smaller sizes. I don’t know. People will use them on their Christmas tree. Just add a hanger or ribbon. 

Elsie: That’s right. And have, like, family photos or vintage photos or even like little one of those trees.Remember?

Emma: Yeah, they’re really cute. I think Claire has one too. Oh, cute. Yeah, I think you both did it, but I can’t remember now. I’d have to go check. But anyway, cute.

Emma: Well, for me, sparks joy. Have you had Domino’s Pan pizza before? Oh my God.

Elsie: I can’t believe you’re saying this. Go on, go on, sell it card.

Emma: So this is not sponsored. This is just for free. So we are a Domino’s Pizza delivery household.

Elsie: I feel like everyone has their place. I am like anti Domino’s and Emma is anti Papa John’s.

Elsie: Yeah. No, I’m like, I’m a Pizza Hut. I like pizza. I have to get one of the big three and it’s Pizza Hut for me.

Emma: Pizza Hut’s my number two, we love Pizza Hut, but Domino’s are number one and Pizza Hut’s number two. Papa John’s is a never, so they’ll never sponsor us now and I’m fine with that because I’m not a fan. So anyway, so we always get hand toss and the other night I was like, really in the mood to order a pizza. Oscar was already in bed. Trey didn’t want pizza. I’m pregnant though. So I was like, I’m ordering a pizza and I was like, I’ve never had their pan pizza. I wonder if it’s like the Pizza Hut pan pizza, which is like a little crispy on the bottom part of our childhood.

Oh, it’s a big part of our childhood. So, I was like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take a chance here and not get the hand toss. It was amazing. It was so good. It was a lot like the Pizza Hut Pan pizza. Yeah. And it was almost like, it’s not as good as our Detroit style pizza on our blog. But I was not making pizza. I was in the mood to just order it and take a shower and wait for it to get to my house.

Elsie: Oh, my gosh.

Emma: It was very good though. So it sparked joy.

Elsie: No, that sounds good. I have some pizza woes in our moving to our hometown. I miss my Nashville pizza.

Emma: We don’t have a lot of pizza in Springfield and it’s hard.

Elsie: It’s hard.

Emma: We only have the big chains really.

Elsie: And then we have a cute little spot in our neighborhood, but it’s like a mood food so it’s like a once a season thing for me.

Emma: There’s a pizza downtown, but they only do it from 6 to 9. Like twice a week, I think on the weekends I’m never out the other night I was finally out, but it was almost nine. So I was like, they’re going to be sold out. I’m not going to be able to get it. So it’s, you know, sad. So, pizza is tough around here. But anyway, Domino’s pan pizza.

Elsie: Two thumbs up for me. That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said. And I love it.

Emma: I honestly though I do look, man, sometimes I try to be cool, but other times I’m just gonna be real.

Elsie: Yeah, I respect that. Ok. It’s time for a Nova segment. All right, Nova. What do you have for us this week? 

Nova: A joke. What kind of key opens up a banana?  A monkey.

Elsie: Love it. That was good. 

Nova: Bye. 

Elsie: Thank you so much for listening. You can submit your questions at podcast@abeautifulmess.com or call our voicemail at 4178930011. We’ll be back next week with an episode all about our experience with Created Colorful.