Rug selling has become strange these days! Yesterday a couple came in and looked for a 5 x 8 black area rug. I showed them several pieces. The wife liked one medium quality, medium priced one and the husband liked a high quality area rug. They had discussions off and on. The lady mentioned that this rug was to be used for the entrance, therefore should not be expensive. The husband believed that the higher quality rug would look much nicer and would not curl and would not be mis-shaped after a while. Luckily, the husband was the winner. In most of the cases, wives would like to pay higher prices and spend more, but the husbands resist and give excuses. This case was different. They also bought a rug pad since their floor was tile and they should use the padding to keep the rug in its place. I gave them two doormats free of charge and as a gift so they do not wary about their expensive area rug getting dirty. They paid by credit card and the gentleman wanted to carry the rug. I said I would do it myself and put the rug in their brand new black Cadillac Scolade.
We have racks for 5 x 8 rugs. All of our rugs are labeled and tagged with price and specification. So our customers can trust us and make sure that we do not give them prices from the top of our heads by throwing something!
Yesterday, a lady called me in the morning regarding a runner she had for cleaning. It was water damaged by a pipe breaking in their house. I said we could take care of it. Do you want us to pick it up or you will bring it in? She said her husband would bring it to our rug gallery later during the day. The husband brought the runner around 5:00 pm. It was a completely wet hand knotted Chinese runner. The gentleman was a school principal in West Los Angeles. We became friends in minutes. He sat down for half an hour and we talked about everything, from politics to inflation and housing, and of course kids and parents. He complained about how some parents spoil their kids by paying too much attention to them and giving them expensive gifts they should not receive such as expensive cars!
We were relatively busy yesterday by receiving few rugs for cleaning from different customers who dropped off their rugs. One of the rugs was a hand knotted 9 x 12 feet Nepalese rug which belonged to a movie production company. The rug was very dirty with many stains on it. They use this rug for filming on the stage. If the stains do not come out by washing, we have to do expert stain removal by a repairman we have on site. I went home around 7:15 pm
Khosrow Sobhe
www.RugIdea.com310-770-9085
moths were flying inside the car and I could see them in my inside mirror. The owner said this Kerman rug was bought for $9,000 almost 20 years ago. We cleaned both rugs and repaired the Qum rug. I have not given estimate for the repair of the Kerman rug to the owner of this rug. It will cost him at least $6,000 and it will take 10 weeks to repair it.
