Restoration is not one job but a sequence, and each stage constrains the next. Skipping the condition record makes reweaving guesswork; washing before the ends are secured loses fringe. Here is the order we work in, and what a careful shop should be able to explain to you at each point.
1. Condition report and photography
Before anything is touched, the rug is photographed front and back, measured, and described in writing: weave structure, knot count, foundation material, dye behaviour, and every area of loss, stain, or previous repair.
This record is what a quote is built on, and what you compare the finished piece against. Ask for a copy — if a shop cannot produce one, they are pricing by guess.
2. Dye and fibre testing
A small, hidden area is wetted to see whether the dyes bleed and how the wool responds. Early synthetic dyes and some overdyed reds run badly; the test decides whether the piece can be immersion washed at all, or must be surface cleaned instead.
3. Dusting
Most of what dulls an old rug is dry soil sitting deep in the pile, and it has to come out before water goes in — wet grit turns to mud and abrades the foundation from within. Dusting is mechanical, done from the back, and it is the stage most low-cost cleaners skip.
4. Securing the structure
Loose ends, open selvedges, and split foundation are stabilised before washing, so that handling does not turn a small loss into a large one. Where a rug is very fragile, the whole treatment may stop here and become a conservation case rather than a restoration.
5. Washing and controlled drying
A pH-appropriate wash, thorough rinsing, and flat drying under airflow. Drying matters as much as washing: a rug dried slowly in a damp room can develop odour and mildew that no amount of later cleaning fixes.
6. Reweaving and repair
This is the hand work. Missing pile is reknotted with wool matched for material, spin, and colour; worn borders are rebuilt; ends are rewoven and selvedges overcast. Good repair is meant to read as part of the rug from standing height and be identifiable up close.
- ·Pile reknotting for holes and worn patches
- ·End finishing and fringe reconstruction
- ·Selvedge and side-cord rebuilding
- ·Patching and structural backing for fragile grounds
- ·Moth damage treatment and reweaving
7. Final wash, inspection, and return
New wool is washed with the rug so the repair settles in tone, the pile is groomed in direction, and the piece is inspected against the intake photographs before it is rolled on a core for delivery.
How long it takes, and what drives cost
Cleaning alone is usually a matter of days once it reaches the studio. Reweaving is priced by the hand hour and by area, so a small hole in a plain field is inexpensive while a lost corner of a fine, densely knotted rug is not. Size, knot density, dye matching difficulty, and the extent of loss are the four things that move a quote.
Common questions
- Is antique rug restoration worth it?
- For a hand-knotted rug of any age, stabilising damage almost always costs less than the value lost by letting it spread. A small hole grows every time the rug is walked on. We tell people when a repair is not economically worth doing.
- Will the repair be visible?
- From standing height a good reweave should disappear into the field. Up close it should be identifiable, because conservation practice is to make interventions honest and reversible rather than hidden.
- Can you match the original wool?
- We match handspun wool for fibre, spin, and dye tone. On pieces where the original colours have faded unevenly, we match the rug as it is today rather than as it left the loom.