If your Oriental rug has areas where it bunches, waves, or wrinkles, and you can’t simply smooth them out by repositioning the rug, then you may need to do a process called stretching. Stretching a rug is just like it sounds – it stretches the fibers back out so that they lay flat. But you don’t want to just start yanking away, because that can damage this beautiful work of art. Here is a quick guide on how to stretch an Oriental rug.
Why Stretch a Rug
One thing that you may wonder is why you’d want to stretch your rug at all if it could be damaging. Would it be better to just put up with the wrinkles? But the fact is that the wrinkles and bunches in an Oriental rug do more than just give it an unsightly appearance. It can also make it more likely that the rug gets torn, and it’s more likely that someone will trip and get hurt.
How to Stretch a Rug
There are five steps to stretching an Oriental rug:
• Brush out the rug pile by hand till it’s all smooth and flat.
• Roll the rug up into an extremely tight sausage roll. Start at a smooth edge and roll towards the other smooth edge.
• Unroll the rug, straighten it out, and brush the pile smooth again. You should be pressing very firmly as you brush the pile.
• The next step is usually done by a professional. Using a very low heat, an iron will be applied to the rug so that the pile gets ironed out into a straight, flat surface. The iron is always moved in the direction of the pile, and this process is done till all of the edges of the rug are flat.
• During the ironing process, weights are placed at the corners of the rug to prevent them from curling up.
There are other tools that professionals may use to stretch a rug, but this is the easiest and safest method for non-professionals to use when removing wrinkles out of an Oriental rug.
How to Avoid Rug Wrinkles in the Future
There are a couple of things that you can do to help prevent your rug from needing stretched in the future. First, you can back the rug with rubber strips, or use a no-slip pad under the rug to keep it in place. This helps prevent traffic from kicking the rug into a bunched-up position. Second, you can always be sure to go to an experienced professional for rug cleaning – cleaning an Oriental rug without the proper tools and techniques can cause wrinkling. Finally, you can move it out of a high traffic area where it is less likely to be tripped on.
By following this process, and taking care to prevent future wrinkles, your Oriental rug will last for years to come.