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 A proper repair rebuilds the rug the way it was originally made — foundation first, then pile, matched to the original knot density and dye lot — so the repaired section moves, wears and ages at the same rate as everything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, furniture legs and old tack strip left behind when wall-to-wall came up. 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 that spent years in an attic or a closed bonus room over a garage — dark, still and undisturbed is exactly what they want.

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

Sun-bleached bands across a rug that has faced the same window for thirty years, bleach spots, and dye that migrated during a bad cleaning or an over-wetting. Colour is rebuilt by hand where the fibre is still sound, and we are honest about how far fading can be taken back, which is not as far as anyone would like.

Resizing & Reshaping

Rugs cut down to fit a room, 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 that have never been washed, and the split that eventually opens along a fold left in a rug by years in storage. 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 on original oak and heart pine, where a solid rubber pad traps moisture against the boards and marks the finish in the outline of the rug, and at the perimeter, where the right pad also closes the gap that filtration lines come through.

Wet Rug Service

Flood, Leak & Over-Wet Rug Restoration

A supply line behind a washing machine, a water heater at the end of its life, a hard line of spring storms that found a lifted shingle, or a rented extraction machine that put more water into a wool rug in one afternoon than it could give back. 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. Through an East Tennessee summer the room is always warm enough. 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.

Slow drying is its own kind of damage, and it is the one we see most here. As an over-wet rug dries from the top down, water travelling upward carries dissolved soil from the base of the pile to the tips, which is where brown wick-back rings come from; on a cotton or jute foundation the same movement pulls lignin out of the plant fibre and browns the rug evenly from the inside. A fan pointed at a wet rug is not restoration: it dries the surface, locks everything else 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.
Carry it, do not drag it. A soaked rug is several times its dry weight and dragging tears selvedge and pops warps.
Do not put more water on it, and do not run a machine over it again. Half-washing sets the problem and complicates the real wash.

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 flood water 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 and nothing wicks back.
Browning and dye-bleed correction. Cellulosic browning and 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 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 on the Knox, Blount and Oak Ridge 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 rug came out of an attic with a hard fold in it. Is that fixable?

Usually, and it is worth doing sooner rather than later. A fold is a hinge: the foundation flexes at that exact line under every footstep, so a crease that is only a crease this year becomes a split in the warps in a few. Washing relaxes the fibre, the rug is blocked back flat under tension, and any warps that have already gone are rebuilt before the pile is knotted back in. A rug found this way often has old moth grazing on the underside as well, so both get looked at together.

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. It is also what happens to a rug that has been swinging between a humid summer and a dry winter in a room the heating does not really reach. 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

Knoxville Care Notes

Reservoir sediment, filtration lines, pollen season and the rug that never moves — what rug owners here need to know.

Care notes

Book a Collection

Collection and delivery included across Knox and Blount counties, and out to Oak Ridge.

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Rug Repair & Restoration in Knoxville