You take extreme pride at showing them off to your friends, relatives and guests and all those who drop in at your place. Actually, even if you don't have a visitor on a particular day, still you love to admire them and consider them an integral part of your concept of home.

The braided rugs are by nature long lasting and can take a lot of harsh treatment but you must not forget that they are made through braiding strips of cloth. So, you should take extreme care that no damage to the braiding is done. If you can protect the braiding, the rug would take care of the other attacks! In fact, the more pressure and trampling is done on these rugs, the flatter they become and the braiding gets even more dense. So, footsteps actually increase the life span of these braided rugs and carpets!

In recent days another property of these rugs has made them even more popular.

The fibers used today have the capacity to hide soil and dirt and reflect light. That is to say, the soil and dirt don't show as starkly as they would on a hard floor. But this apparent absence of soil and dirt does not mean that it is not there. Moreover, dry soil has sharp edges, so if allowed to remain for a longer time within the rug the braiding fibers may get damaged and your rug may end up with a scruffy look.

Braided Rugs Care

So, you should ensure that your rugs are cleaned regularly and, more importantly, properly.

Make it a general practice to vacuum at least the upper side of your rugs at least twice a week. Your vacuum cleaner should have enough suction power to penetrate right up to the backing. Move the vacuum cleaner slowly and deliberately over the carpet quite a few times till you feel enough soil has been sucked out. That will remove a major part of the dust and loose soil which tends to get accumulated through repeated footfalls.

But you just can not avoid cleaning the rugs once in a while.

The first thing you shouldn't do while cleaning the rugs is use a vacuum cleaner with rotating brushes (or beater bars, as they are more popularly known). These beater bars tend to pull at the braiding strings and leave your carpet with a scruffy look.

Use a gentle rug cleaner and the vacuum cleaner should shoot water inside the carpet so that the soap gets inside the fibers. Leave it like that for a few minutes and allow the cleaner to do its job of loosening the dirt. After that, keep dousing the carpet with large jets of water so that the soap is completely cleaned out. Take care that the rug is placed flat all the while you are cleaning it otherwise it will become crumpled and it will be impossible to remove those creases later.

After all the soap has been flushed out, leave the carpet to dry on that flat surface. You may have to turn it upside down quite a few times to ensure that it dries uniformly or else it will start emitting a sour smell when you lay it down once again. When you are sure that it is completely dry sling it over some sturdy bar or rod so that both sides of the carpet are aired properly.

If however you want to just spot clean your rug then all this hassle is not necessary.

Use a gentle rug cleaner and a piece of cloth (don't use brushes, they may damage the braiding strings) and swipe the area clean.