We love rugs.  There is always at least one or two spots for a special antique or vintage rug in your room: and it does not always have to be on the floor.  A rug can be displayed on the wall, atop the ottoman, slung over the side of a couch.  So with all these different ways of decorating with rugs, lets talk about what we consider rugs:  Technically a rug is an area rug measuring approximately 5'x8' and smaller in size.  The word 'rug' and 'carpet' are for the most part used interchangeably.  In the Old New House shop, our featured rugs are exclusively hand knotted or hand woven - which is the more intimate of many types of processes in making rugs*.  This is one important aspect of what we provide to the customers: Authenticity and genuine hand made rugs.  So while one part of authenticity is hand made nature, another important factor is true age.

So how do we date our rugs?

In the Old New House shop, an antique rug is one we place an estimated age of 100 old or greater.  This is somewhat of a conservative approach to calling a rug antique (some say 60 or 80 years).  Why do we not call an 60 or 80 year old rug antique?  Many years ago, old customs import/export laws would only consider a rug to be antique if it exceeded 100 years old.  Many museums and collectors still consider this to be true.  In the ONH shop, if you see us calling a rug an antique, it's more or less pre-1915.  Here are a few of our antique rugs:

An antique Mohtashem Kashan rug

An antique Belouch rug

An antique Kerman rug

What is a vintage rug?  We consider a vintage rug to be one with a weaving date of +/- 40 to 99 +/- years old. Due to a high level of commercialization in the rug industry, we select the best of the best vintage rugs to offer in our shop - great quality wool and weave, awesome contrast or tone on tone. Here are a few examples of Old New House vintage rugs:

A gorgeous vintage Sarouk runner

A hard-to-find size rug - a happy vintage Hamadan

A vintage Kerman rug

*  Loose paraphrasing of industry wording - an Oriental rug is a hand made weaving created with or without pile comprised of a warp and weft made in the Near, Mid or Far East. Technically, this includes many types of rugs - Kilim rugs, hand knotted rugs, soumak rugs, even hand tufted rugs.  The rugs we feature in the shop are exclusively hand made, and most all of the rugs are hand knotted. While qualities in all types of rugs may vary, the process of hand knotting rugs is considered among the more intimate of processes to create a floor covering.

Melissa + Dave

Old New House

Websites / Blogs / Forums

Forum.RugRag.com - An active Oriental rug forum for novices to connect with collectors and dealers for purposes of Oriental rug identification and general information.

PersianCarpetGuide.com - An resource for information on Oriental rugs especially useful for identification based on region and technical characteristics/breakdown.

RugRag.com - An informational website featuring an archive of information on how to make informed Oriental rug purchases, what to look for when buying, and general tips to bring a novice into the collector world of antique rugs and fine Oriental rugs.

SpongoBongo.com - An information rug resource including photographic reference plates from auction houses around the world and identification of Oriental rug separated by regions and people made.

TurkoTek.com - A comprehensive website geared for the collector with emphasis on village, tribal/nomadic weavings pre-1900.  An active forum and many knowledgeable and known scholars.

Museums and Direct Collection Links

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Carpets of the Islamic World, 1600-1800: "They were traded to Europe and the Far East where, too precious to be placed on the ground, they were used to cover furniture or hung on walls. Within the Islamic world, especially fine specimens were collected in royal households."

Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston Collection of Oriental Rugs and Textiles

Brooklyn Museum Collection of Rugs

Carpet Museum of Iran

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - Featuring one of the twin Ardabil Carpets

Metropolitan Museum of Art - A retrospective look at displaying Islamic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  More from their collection of rugs and textiles.

Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London - Housing one of the twin Ardabil Carpets.  Great reads including a new perspective on the Ardabil Carpets, and the history of the Ardabil Carpets.

State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Russia - Museum housing the oldest known example of an Oriental rug dating back to 2500 B.C.

Textile Museum in Washington D.C.