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 A proper repair rebuilds the rug the way it was originally made — foundation first, then pile, matched to the original knot density and dye lot — so the repaired section moves, wears and ages at the same rate as everything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 Damage

Moth larvae eat wool from underneath, so by the time bare foundation shows there is usually an active problem. We treat the infestation, then reweave the grazed areas. The classic find on this route is a rug in a room that gets shut in November to save on heat — a bonus room over a garage, an enclosed porch, a spare bedroom at the cold end of the house. Nobody walks on it and nobody looks at it until April.

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

Faded bands, bleach spots, and dye that migrated during a bad cleaning or a soaking. The fade pattern here surprises people: the canopy comes down in November and a low winter sun reaches several feet further into a south-facing room than the summer sun ever does, so the bleached band sits where nobody expected one. Colour is rebuilt by hand where the fibre is still sound.

Resizing & Reshaping

Rugs cut down to fit a room — common where a big parlour was divided into flats — or blocked back to square after years of buckling. Cut edges are properly finished so the rug reads as intentional rather than amputated.

Backing & Foundation Repair

Failed latex on hand-tufted rugs, brittle cotton warps in antiques, and rugs that ripple because the foundation gave way. A foundation that has been dried out and reabsorbed every year for decades ends up a different size to the wool it is carrying. 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 hardwood and on a floor at an outside wall, where a solid rubber pad holds whatever condenses underneath in January against the foundation and against the boards.

Wet Rug Service

Burst Lines, Sump Failures & Water Damage Rug Restoration

A supply line in an outside wall that froze, split and then let go on the thaw. A sump pump running against a discharge pipe iced closed at the outlet. A basement floor drain coming back at you because interior drainage cannot get out. 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. A house with the furnace running is warm enough for that in the middle of February. 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.

A freeze does something no other kind of leak does: it delays the evidence. Nothing comes out of a split pipe while the ice is still in it, so the water arrives hours or days later, under mains pressure, often when nobody is in the house. Water that has been through soil, around a foundation or through a sump pit is its own contamination category, and drainage backing up through a floor drain is worse again. A fan pointed at any of it 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.
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 stand it rolled in a cold garage “until things calm down”. That is where most of the rugs we cannot save have been.
Turning the heat up to dry the room speeds the mould up as well. Get the rug out instead.

The restoration sequence

Priority collection. Wet rugs are run ahead of routine cleaning where the schedule allows.
Category assessment. Clean supply water, sump or ground water, and drainage backing up out of a floor drain are three different jobs, and which one you have decides the method.
Extraction and full flush. Contaminants 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.
Dye-bleed correction. Colours that migrated while the rug was wet are 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 winter 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 on the Jefferson, Oldham and southern Indiana route.

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.

My wool has cracked along a fold line. Can that be repaired?

Usually, and it is one of the most common repairs on this route. Wool that has spent winter after winter in very dry indoor air loses elasticity, and a fibre in that state breaks rather than bends wherever the rug is creased — over a threshold strip, along a partition wall, or where it has been folded back for years. The rug is washed first, which puts moisture back into the fibre, then the broken foundation is rebuilt along the line and the pile knotted back in.

Can a rug that stood in water from a burst pipe 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. Water that has been through a sump pit or come up out of a floor drain needs immersion to get the contamination out of the foundation, and mould establishes in a saturated foundation within roughly forty-eight hours in a heated 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, or years on a pad that was too soft — and here there is a fourth cause worth checking first: a cotton foundation that shrank through the heating season and has not come back yet. If a rug is ridged in March and flat in July, that is the reason. Where it is permanent, 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

Louisville Care Notes

Road salt, dry furnace air, static and freeze-thaw water — what rug owners here need to know.

Care notes

Book a Collection

Collection and delivery included across Jefferson and Oldham counties and southern Indiana.

Contact us

Rug Repair & Restoration in Louisville