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 A proper repair rebuilds the rug the way it was originally made — foundation first, then pile, matched to the original knot density and dye lot — so the repaired section moves, wears and ages at the same rate as everything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 two classic finds here are a rug in a room of a subdivided old house that nobody opens, and a rug rolled up in a garage — dark, still and undisturbed is exactly the condition 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

Tannin lines picked up from a damp wood floor, brown tide marks left by blackwater flooding, bleach spots, and dye that migrated during a bad cleaning or a soaking. Colour is rebuilt by hand where the fibre is still sound.

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. Old houses here are full of rooms nothing standard fits.

Backing & Foundation Repair

Failed latex on hand-tufted rugs, brittle cotton warps in antiques, and rugs that ripple because the foundation gave way. 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 original wood floors and on a below-grade or crawlspace-backed floor, where a solid rubber pad traps moisture underneath and holds it against both the rug and the boards for months.

Wet Rug Service

Tidal Flooding, River Water & Water Damage Rug Restoration

A spring tide across a low island yard on a clear day, the Ogeechee up after three days of rain, a courtyard drain that could not take a summer downpour, or a supply line behind a washing machine on a garden-level floor. 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. From April to October the room here is always warm enough, and the air the rug is meant to dry into is already carrying most of the water it can hold. 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.

Where the water came from changes the job. Tidal water is brackish and it arrives carrying creek silt and organic matter; the salt it leaves behind is hygroscopic, so the fibre keeps pulling moisture back in every humid afternoon long after it feels dry. Blackwater off the Ogeechee is tannin-stained and leaves a brown line rather than a clean one, which is a colour problem on top of a contamination problem. Both have to be dissolved out in immersion. A fan pointed at a wet rug 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, and old boards under a wet rug start cupping.
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 hose brackish water off and leave it. Half-washing sets the contamination and complicates the real wash.
Do not carry it down to a garden level or a garage to get it out of the way. That is the dampest air in the building.

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 tidal or river flooding are three different jobs, and which one you have decides the method.
Extraction and full flush. Silt, salt and 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 and tide-line correction. Colours that migrated while the rug was wet, and brown lines left by tannin-stained water, 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 in Chatham or Bryan County.

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.

Can a rug that took tidal water 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. Brackish water needs immersion to get the salt, the silt and the organic matter out of the foundation, and mould establishes in a saturated foundation within roughly forty-eight hours in a warm room. Ask before you put anything on the kerb.

My rug came out of storage between postings. What now?

Open it out flat and look at the back before you lay it down. Months in a container or an unconditioned unit means heat and damp with no air movement, which is where both mildew in the foundation and moth grazing under the fold begin, and neither is visible from the pile side. Send photographs of the front, the back and the fold lines and we will tell you what you are looking at.

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. The rug is washed, blocked back to square under tension, and the foundation repaired where it has stretched or torn. If the floor underneath is an old wood floor that has cupped, that is worth checking at the same time — a rug cannot lie flat on a floor that is not.

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 on these floors.

Cleaning process

Savannah Care Notes

Garden-level damp, marsh air, pluff mud and the live oak spring — what rug owners here need to know.

Care notes

Book a Collection

Collection and delivery included across Chatham and Bryan counties.

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Rug Repair & Restoration in Savannah