How To Clean A Silk Oriental Rug

Photo by Lizzie Himmel

Is your job like being a doctor—everybody wants to tell you their rug stories? Because I have an 1820s Chinese rug. It's so beautiful but the fringe is gone on one end.

Fringe always wears out first. Vacuums do a lot of damage to it.

So how often should a rug be cleaned?

Every four or five years, even every ten years if it's not walked on much. Overcleaning contributes to wear and tear. For really fine silk, every 20 or 30 years is enough. How do we do it? We immerse rugs in a shallow pool, agitate them very gently with a shampoo machine, Wetvac out 90 percent of the water, and then hang them on poles in a drying room at 110 degrees.

Do any of the stain removers on the market really work, or do you have home remedies you recommend?

Keep a bottle of club soda on hand, dedicated to stains caused by pets, coffee, orange soda, red wine, anything with dye and an acid base. Those are the most difficult stains to reverse once they dry. The key is to act quickly. Pour the club soda directly onto the area, let the soda absorb into the yarn, and the salt in the soda will neutralize the acid. Blot again and again, until the residue is gone. For bloodstains you should use milk instead, and for soil- and grease-based stains, mix one part Ivory soap detergent with 16 parts water. If you still see residue when it dries, call an expert. We see a lot of people using Afta now, or actually overusing it. People scrub, and the abrasions cause more damage than the original stain.

You must see some real horror-story damage here.

We had to put Ralph Lauren's rugs in freezers for seven days to kill moths. We've fixed a hole the size of a dinner plate that a dog chewed in a 19th-century Sultanabad.

How do you manage to match old thread?

We have thousands of yarns, from everywhere. We've been in business in the U.S. since 1886.

I use these little plastic squares with teeth under the legs of heavier furniture. Is that the right kind to use?

We like the ones with soft carpet on the bottom better. The gripping plastic teeth, those are too strenuous for my taste.

What's the best way to keep a rug in storage?

Roll it up, wrap it in kraft paper or bedsheets, and lay it flat someplace cool and dry. Unroll it once a year.

And what's your favorite kind of padding?

Tan neoprene from Jade Industries in Pennsylvania. It doesn't attract soil, it doesn't dry out, it doesn't shift or wrinkle.

What do your cleaning and repairs cost?

Cleaning a 9-by-12-foot rug is usually $500–600. Repairs are $75 an hour. A significant repair can take six weeks.

Is there any assignment you'd turn down?

[Winces] We don't make rugs into pillows.

Restoration by Costikyan, 28-13 14th Street, Long Island City, NY 11102; 800-247-7847; www.costikyan.com

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