An Oriental rug adds charm and beauty to any room in your home. In heavy traffic areas, though, the rug can be prone to worn and frayed edges. There’s something to be said for “shabby chic,” but if your rug is starting to look well past its “best before” date, you might want to take action.

You could take your Oriental rug to a professional to have it repaired, but unless the damage is severe, and if you’re a bit handy, you might also choose to tackle the job yourself.

BUT DON’T I NEED TRAINING?

No, not necessarily. This kind of rug repair is pretty easy, and if the edges aren’t horribly frayed, you can usually accomplish it in about an hour. Here’s how it’s done.

Step 1

First, clean the rug thoroughly. The last thing you want is to have dirt in the way when you’re trying to fix up the edges, or getting under the adhesive material you’ll be using and make things look worse.

Step 2

Using a pair of scissors, snip off any loose threads.

Step 3

Now, take a good look at the edges of the rug, and decide which areas need to be fixed. Use the scissors again to take off any problematic areas, but don’t cut so close that you actually damage the rest of the rug.

Step 4

Find a fabric pen that has the same color as the edges of the rug. You’ll find that where the rug has frayed, it’s lost its color, so your job right now is to restore the color to the edges.

Step 5

Use a fabric bonding spray to “close in” the areas. In other words, take hold of some of the damaged areas, and pull them in toward one another. Take note of any areas where the fringe might have pulled away from the rest of the rug, and if necessary, fold the edges under and secure them with a further application of bonding spray.

Step 6

Once you’ve done that, hold the spray can upright, and spray all over the repaired edges in order to bond the fibers together and prevent further fraying.

That’s It!

Most of the time, that’s all that it takes to repair your Oriental rug edges. In cases of serious damage, of course, you will almost certainly have to get professional help. But if the fraying isn’t too bad, there’s nothing wrong with trying to handle it on your own first. Professional rug repairers are there to help you, but if you can manage it on your own, why not give it a try?