Picture this:

You’ve spent hours searching for the perfect rug for your room, and days waiting for it to arrive. You’re so excited, it’s finally here! You roll it out and it looks even better than you had imagined – the colors, the design, the play with your furniture, it’s all perfect! You grab your favorite drink and a snack, ready to sit down and relish your rug. But the horror! As you sit down, your drink and snack both topple to the ground, making a huge mess on this pristine piece! What in the world will you do now?

Have no fear, Rug & Home is here! We have just the tips and tricks you need to clean up this mess and get back to enjoying the newest addition to your home.

Vacuuming the Rug

We all know that our first instinct when cleaning up a dry mess on our rug is to break out the vacuum, but did you know that you can actual damage your rug if you vacuum on the wrong setting? When cleaning your rugs, you always want to make sure you are on the hardwood floor setting with the “beater bar” turned off. You see, as the “beater bar” rotates, it drags what is essentially a comb through the fibers of the rugs and, much like with your hair, it can pull those fibers out. We know you do not want a bald rug!

Using Cleaners

Now, if you have a wet mess on your hands, there can be a lot of confusion. What chemicals are ok to put on a rug? Will they change the rug color? What if we pick the wrong product and destroys our rug? Not to worry, we are here to answer those questions for you! We recommend a line of products called “Capture Cleaner” for all of our rugs. We have these in all of our stores, and it is a common product if you are not close to us. They have several options including:

1. Carpet & Rug Dry Cleaner (to use with your vacuum)
2. Spot & Stain Remover (for those small, everyday spills)
3. Pet Stain & Odor Neutralizer (for when our furry friends get excited about the new rug too)
4. Pre-Mist Carpet Pretreatment & Spot Remover (for those tough, set in stains we only just discovered)
5. Spot Eliminator (for grease and oil based stains)

         We recommend Capture because it is low chemical, and has a proven record of handling the toughest stains in our rugs!

Steaming the Rug

If you’re reading this and thinking, “If you can use cleaner and a vacuum, why not both at the same time?” We have you covered! If you have a steamer at home, you can use that to clean your rug too. Steaming a rug will remove not only the stains you can see, but all sorts of pathogens and bacteria that you cannot. However, steaming a rug is not recommended for all materials. If you have a rug with the following, we do not recommend using a steamer on it:

1. Viscose
2. Bamboo Silk
3. Art Silk
4. Banana Silk
5. Jute
6. Sisal

We also recommend extreme caution when using a steamer on any synthetic rug (such as one with polyester or polypropylene, among others). The steamer may get too hot for these rugs, causing the synthetic fibers to melt. Gross!

Still Not Sure?

If you are ever unsure about using a cleaning product, please contact our stores at any time! We are happy to help advise you, as we understand that you want to take good care of your rug.