Hand Work

Repairs That Disappear Into the Weave

Rug repair is not patching. A proper repair rebuilds the rug the way it was originally made — foundation first, then pile, matched to the original knot density and dye lot — so the repaired section moves, wears and ages at the same rate as everything around it. Done well, you have to be told where it was.

That is slow work. Reweaving is measured in square inches, not square feet, and a hand on a loom is the only tool that does it properly. The upside is that damage most people assume is terminal usually is not. Rugs arrive folded around a hole and go home flat and whole.

Every repair starts with a free assessment and a straight verdict. If the cost of the work is out of proportion to what the rug is worth, we say so instead of taking the job.

Matched wool being knotted back into an oriental rug at the repair bench — Hand reweaving: matched wool knotted back into an oriental rug foundation.

What We Fix

Repair & Restoration Services

From a short fringe tidy to rebuilding a foot of missing border.

Fringe Repair & Replacement

Fringe is the end of the rug’s foundation, not decoration, so when it shreds the rug is unravelling. We secure the ends, rebuild lost warps, and replace or re-knot fringe to match the original.

Edge Binding & Serging

Side cords take the abuse from vacuum beaters and furniture legs. Once they split, the pile beside them starts letting go. Edges are rewrapped by hand in matched wool.

Reweaving & Hole Repair

Burns, tears and worn-through areas are rebuilt knot by knot. The foundation goes back first, then the pile, matched in fibre, colour and density to the field around it.

Moth & Carpet Beetle Damage

Two different insects with two different habits, and the fix depends on which one you have. Moth larvae leave webbing and work one area until it is bare; carpet beetle larvae leave bristly cast skins and scatter thin patches across a rug, and the adults come in from the garden on flowers and through screens. We treat the infestation, then reweave the grazed areas.

Pet Damage

Chewed corners, clawed edges and urine-burnt dye. The rug is decontaminated first, then the missing structure is rebuilt and colour corrected where the original dye was destroyed.

Colour & Dye Correction

Iron staining left behind by clay, bleach spots, and dye that migrated during a bad cleaning, a hose-down on the driveway or a soaking. Colour is rebuilt by hand where the fibre is still sound.

Resizing & Reshaping

Rugs cut down to fit a room, or blocked back to square after years of buckling — including the rug that arrived from a drier state, took up moisture here and stopped lying flat. Cut edges are properly finished so the rug reads as intentional rather than amputated.

Backing & Foundation Repair

Failed latex on hand-tufted rugs — which a few summers in an unconditioned attic will finish off on its own — brittle cotton warps in antiques, and rugs that ripple because the foundation gave way. Structure gets fixed before anything cosmetic.

Rug Pads & Prevention

A great many of the repairs we do could have been avoided by a decent pad. We fit breathable, non-adhesive pads sized to the rug — which matters most on old heart pine and oak, where a solid vinyl or rubber pad softens the finish it is lying on, prints its own pattern into the boards, and seals the back of the rug off from ever drying.

Wet Rug Service

Burst Pipes, Flooding & Water Damage Rug Restoration

A supply line that split behind an exterior wall in a January freeze, an attic air handler that overflowed its drain pan in August, a water heater at the end of its life, or a creek that came up and went down again in one thunderstorm. The rug on that floor is now on a clock.

Why speed matters more than anything else

Wool survives being wet surprisingly well. What it does not survive is staying wet. In a warm room mould establishes in a saturated foundation in roughly forty-eight hours, and once it is at the base of the pile you cannot vacuum, spray or air-dry it back out. Charlotte gives you a warm room for most of the year and a humid one for much of it, so the clock runs faster here than the national advice assumes. Meanwhile unstable dyes start migrating, cotton foundations begin to rot, and whatever the water picked up on the way in is curing into the rug.

Where the water came from decides the method. A clean supply line is one job. Condensate off an air handler is another — it has sat in a pan and run through a ceiling, and it is not sterile. Storm water is the worst of the three, because it has crossed streets and yards and carries iron-bearing clay with it, which stains as well as contaminates. In every case a fan pointed at a wet rug is not restoration: it dries the surface, locks the contamination into the foundation, and produces a rug that smells fine for three weeks and then does not.

What to do before we arrive

Get the rug off the wet floor and out from under furniture — wooden legs bleed stain into a damp pile within hours, and old hardwood underneath is taking damage too.
Do not roll it tightly in plastic. That is an incubator. Loose and airy beats sealed.
Photograph it wet, in place, before moving anything. Your insurer will want that.
Do not hose it down on the drive to rinse the mud off. Half-washing sets the clay and the contamination and complicates the real wash.
Do not put it in the garage to dry. An unconditioned Carolina garage in summer dries nothing and starts something.

The restoration sequence

Priority collection. Wet rugs are run ahead of routine cleaning where the schedule allows.
Category assessment. Clean supply water, grey water and storm or ground water are three different jobs, and which one you have decides the method.
Extraction and full flush. Contaminants and clay are washed out of the foundation, not sealed in behind a dry surface.
Antimicrobial treatment. Applied to the whole rug, front and back, before drying starts.
Monitored flat drying. Forced filtered air with moisture readings taken to completion, so nothing goes home damp.
Iron and dye correction. Clay staining reduced where it can be, and colours that migrated while the rug was wet pulled back where the fibre allows.
Structural repair. Rotted foundation and lost pile rewoven once the rug is stable and dry.
Claim documentation. Photographs and a written condition report for your insurance carrier.

Request an Estimate What damp does to a rug

A rug photographed flat after water-damage recovery, field colour brought back through the pile

How It Works

From First Message to Delivery

Photos or Collection

Send pictures of the damage, or we collect the rug at no charge anywhere in Mecklenburg or Union county.

Assessment & Quote

The damage is mapped, materials identified, and you get a written price with options. No work starts without your approval.

Clean First

Repairs go onto a clean rug. Working new wool into a dirty field leaves a visible patch a year later.

Materials Matched

Wool selected by fibre, weight and dye lot against the original, and tested against the field before it goes in.

Hand Repair

Foundation rebuilt, then pile knotted in at matching density, then sheared to the surrounding height.

Final Check & Return

Groomed, inspected against the intake photographs, and delivered back to your floor.

Questions

Repair & Restoration FAQ

Is my rug worth repairing?

You get a straight answer before any work starts. Repair makes sense when the rug has real value — sentimental or monetary — and the foundation is sound. When the cost of the work approaches what the rug is worth, we say so rather than quietly running up an invoice.

How long does rug repair take?

It depends entirely on the area involved, because reweaving is hand work measured in square inches. You get a timeline with the written quote, before you commit. Water damage is handled differently because it is time-critical, so those rugs go into the process as soon as they arrive rather than waiting their turn.

I bought a rug at an estate sale. Should it be looked at first?

Yes, and before it goes on the floor rather than after. A secondhand rug brings its own history: insect eggs in the fringe and the folds, old contamination in the foundation that has been dry and odourless for years, and previous repairs that may be doing more harm than good — a synthetic fringe machine-sewn onto a hand-knotted end, or a hole filled with a glued-in patch cut from another rug. All of it is easier to deal with before the rug has been living next to the ones you already own. Keep it rolled and separate until it has been washed and cleared.

Can a rug that took storm or flood water be saved?

Often, yes — more often than a first look suggests, and more often than the person standing in the room believes. What decides it is how quickly the rug is flushed rather than how bad it looked on the day. Storm water here brings clay with it, so there is usually an iron-staining problem sitting on top of the contamination problem, and mould establishes in a saturated foundation within roughly forty-eight hours in a warm room. Ask before you put anything in a skip.

Will the repair be visible?

A good reweave is difficult to find once the pile is groomed. Wool is matched by fibre, dye lot and knot density, and the foundation is rebuilt before the pile so the repaired area wears at the same rate as the rest of the rug rather than sinking or standing proud over time.

Do you work with insurance claims?

Yes. Condition is photographed at intake and throughout, and you get written documentation of damage, treatment and value impact to submit to your carrier.

My rug ripples and will not lie flat. Can that be fixed?

Usually. Buckling comes from an uneven foundation, past improper drying, years on a pad that was too soft, or a rug that has moved here from a drier climate and taken up moisture. The rug is washed, blocked back to square under tension, and the foundation repaired where it has stretched or torn.

Send Us a Photo. We Will Tell You Straight.

Free assessment on every repair, and a real answer about whether it is worth doing.

Start a Free Estimate See Service Areas

Rug Cleaning

The six-stage hand wash every rug goes through, and why in-home wand cleaning fails here.

Cleaning process

Charlotte Care Notes

Red clay, spring pollen, shoulder-season damp and crawlspaces — what rug owners here need to know.

Care notes

Book a Collection

Collection and delivery included across Mecklenburg and Union counties.

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Rug Repair & Restoration in Charlotte