Persian, oriental, wool and silk — washed by hand, repaired by hand.
This is a working city built around a river that runs north and stays tidal for a hundred miles, and rugs here fail for local reasons: brackish damp a long way from the ocean, tannin out of the creeks, slabs that have not finished drying, and household goods that get wrapped in plastic and shipped every couple of years. Rugs are collected, washed off site by hand, dried flat, and brought back.
A hand-knotted Tabriz and a polypropylene flatweave off a shelf are not the same object, and they should never meet the same brush. Vegetable dyes bleed. Silk scorches under heat. Cotton foundations shrink if they are pulled out of the wash wet and dried under tension. Guessing is how rugs get ruined.
So nothing gets cleaned until it has been looked over: fibre content, dye stability, weave construction, backing, previous repairs and alterations, and whatever the river, the creeks and a few Florida summers have left down in the foundation. Only then does the rug get a method. That inspection costs nothing, it happens before you commit to anything, and if a rug is not worth the cost of cleaning we will say so.
Wool, silk, cotton, jute and synthetics each get their own water temperature, pH and agitation.
Snapped fringe warps, failing cut-and-rebound edges, moth grazing and split foundations rebuilt by hand.
Tannin blush, river damp and the smell of a foundation that dried too slowly are treated at the source.
We collect and return across Duval and St. Johns counties. You never lift a roll.
Washing, structural repair, and getting water back out of a rug before it becomes a mould problem.
Full immersion hand-washing for Persian, oriental, wool, silk, cotton and modern synthetic rugs. Dry soil and grit come out before any water is introduced, then the rug is washed, flushed until the water runs clear, and dried flat under moving air.
Rug cleaning detailsFringe replacement, edge binding, moth damage, pet destruction, worn pile and missing corners. Reweaving is done with matched wool at matched knot density, so the repair settles into the field instead of announcing itself.
Repair servicesA tide that came up through the storm drains, a supply line behind a washing machine, or a slider that took a nor'easter sideways. Rugs in that state need flushing and controlled drying, not a fan pointed at them. We extract, decontaminate, dry flat, and document the condition throughout.
Water damage service
Rug advice written for the beach towns of the Gulf coast does not transfer here, and neither does advice written for a dry inland city. Jacksonville is a port of about a million people wrapped around the lower St. Johns, and the river is the thing that makes it different: it flows north, it is tidal for well over a hundred miles, and it carries brackish water and a twice-daily tide past neighborhoods that are nowhere near the ocean. Most people here live in their houses all year, so nothing gets discovered in October — it accumulates quietly instead.
A few of the soaked rugs on this route met a named storm. Far more of them met a supply line behind a washing machine, a water heater at the end of its life, a condensate pan that overflowed into a hall, or a sliding door that took a nor'easter side-on for two days in November. Water that starts clean is rarely clean by the time it reaches the rug, because it has crossed a floor to get there.
River water is its own category, and around here it does not have to be a hurricane. The lower St. Johns is brackish and tidal, so water that backs up through a storm drain on an autumn king tide is slightly salty and carries whatever was in the street. Either way, what matters is what happens next. A wet wool foundation is a growing medium and a warm room speeds that up. Drying the surface with a fan leaves the salt and the contamination in the base of the pile and produces a rug that seems fine for a few weeks and then does not. The rug has to be flushed, treated, and dried flat with the moisture content actually measured — and photographed before any of that, because that is what an insurer will ask for.
Off-site washing, hand finishing, and a route that runs from Amelia Island down to Nocatee.
From Amelia Island and the Beaches through the historic districts on both banks of the river, south to Mandarin, Julington Creek and Nocatee, and out to Ponte Vedra. Collection is included.
One hand-knotted Persian rug, photographed before and after cleaning.
Send the form and we will come back with a real number. Estimates are free and there is no obligation to book.
How rugs are actually built, how to tell hand-knotted from tufted in ten seconds, and what any of it means for a house on the First Coast.
Free estimate, collection and delivery included — anywhere on the route.
