Monday, April 13, 2015

Persian rugs: my heriz obsession

Two years ago, when we bought our last house, I started searching craigslist for a persian rug.  I didn't have a particular style in mind, only that I wanted something pretty with bright colors.  I saw this rug listed for $1500.  (Excuse the blurry, overexposed shot; I saved the pic from craigslist.)


This is a heriz style persian rug, and this rug started my obsession with this style.  I am no expert on persian rugs, but the things I like about the heriz style is that they usually have a pointed medallion in the middle and intricately patterned details in the field and borders.  They are also usually made with bright, vibrant colors.  Even the vintage, faded rugs that I've seen are still very bright and colorful.

Sadly, $1500 was way more than I wanted to spend on a rug, and it is also a 6x9 size, which was not useful for me in any room in my house.  Over the next two years I would see that rug on CL constantly. After a while it disappeared off CL and I figured it had sold.

About six months ago, it came back on CL again, this time at $1200.  Still too much money, and still no real place for it in my house.  I wrote the seller and offered $500 anyways, noting that he had been trying to sell the rug for over a year without success, and that I would give it a happy home.  He rejected me anyways.   The ad disappeared after a while.

This week it came back on, this time for $1000.  In a tidy narrative this is where I would say "and I finally got my rug!"  But no.  I still don't have a place for a 6x9 rug, although I'm willing to layer it over another rug in my bedroom or the guest room.  But $1000 is still too much money for a rug I have no real use for.

I know that this rug is still on CL because we moved into a house with all laminate floors, including the bedrooms, and I have been shopping for four 8x11 rugs.  The average new 8x11 wool rug runs $1000+, and I need four of them, and no way in hell am I spending $4g on rugs for a rental house, so.....back to dealing with the craigslist crazies.

I did find two very cheap rugs for the kids rooms, so I was willing to spend up $1000 on a rug for the family room if I could find a heriz that I liked on craigslist, or at a rug dealer.  I spent an afternoon bargaining with a rug dealer over this amazing rug:


I could only get them to $2600 (down from $6000), and that was still too much.  (I think a hand-made rug is worth that much, I'm just not willing to spend that much at this moment in time.)

Still obsessed with the possibility of a persian, I broadened my CL search to LA and San Diego.  This morning I drove really far to get this:



It is not a real heriz, it is simply a heriz-ish style, at 1/10th the price.  It is a plush wool machine made rug with lots of pinks and blues.  YAY ME!!!

The other two (not heriz, but still persian) 8x11 rugs I found on craigslist from a little old lady, and she sold them to me at $45 a piece. There is a pink and blue one for Princess's room:


And a red one for the boys' room.  This is admittedly not the rug I would like to have in there (Peter said "there's a little too much green and brown in this rug, it doesn't really match"), but for $45 I will count it a success.


I'm still hunting a 10x13 for my bedroom.  That may take a while.  

3 comments:

  1. I love your rugs. That first one with all the red is so you. Could totally see that in your home. But I also really like the "not-real" one you got. Which is a real deal, if you ask me. And given your rental home and 3 kids, I'm thinking that's actually the best deal for you right now anyway. Maybe by the time you're in the right place for it, that guy will have lowered his price enough. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! Someday, I will own a real heriz, but for now, I'm pretty happy with what I've found!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lisa, if you ever need your rugs cleaned, there is an AMAZING lady / company in San Diego called K. Blatchford's Rug Cleaning Company (http://blatchfords.com). Kate cleaned and gave me the history of a family heirloom rug for a reasonable price.

    ReplyDelete

Yay! You're commenting! I love comments!