Last year we were all set to go big at the New York Rug Show, but hurricane Irma held us hostage in Tampa while she made her way through.
So it was good to get back to the Javitts' Center at the beginning of September this year to see what was happening.
There were some new offerings from old friends. New offerings from new friends. And, some interesting stuff that I want to mention, but did not buy.
To keep my courage up, I often recall my old friend and long-time rug merchant of Naples FL John Craig who said this about buying rugs.
Greetings everyone.
I have been laying carpet all my life. I started in high school working for my dad whom many of you know.
It's been great. I've loved it and I still love it.
Pets are special family members who require special Design considerations.
Every year or so, a vendor friend from Turkey of long acquaintance offers us a small collection of Anatolian rugs. They have proven to be very popular. We generally sell them all.
Anatolia (Asia Minor) refers to the geographic region that occupies the land that modern Turkey occupies.
The rugs are older, but as always in great shape. Some may qualify as "vintage," that is older than 50 years but younger than 100.
This being Gary's Birthday Month (his birthday is May 20, 1950), we decided to revisit his vision and accomplishments to remind ourselves why we are all here.
In the early 1980s Gary supported his family selling carpet. With a carload of sample books, he spent most of the week on the road visiting clients.
After six years we have updated our website.
We've eliminated rug listings. They were impossible to keep up and drew very little traffic. This experiment proved to us what we already knew: designers want to see and feel rugs before deciding on them. Showroom 10, website 0.
Maybe the most common question that we get from designers as they enter the showroom: "What's New?"
So we have included a listing of pictures of our newest rug arrivals under the Rug tab on the site.
Here are four wood flooring topics that can gobble up a lot of your time, but can be tamed with these facts.
Gary Dicus who founded our company and who had an outsized love for rugs said many times that a rug sometimes has to hang in the showroom for a while, but sooner or later someone will come in and love it.
This is largely true.
And we still do it.
But we have run out of space to hang everything we would like to and need to remedy that so we can bring in more new stock.
Here is our plan.
Weekend before last, I bundled up and hit the Atlanta Rug Show, part of the Atlanta Market. Several vendors that we like were going to be there. It was a good opportunity to see what's happening.
I saw no startling innovations, just the latest steps in naturally evolving trends that have been working.
Looking for a unique way to treat a wall? Cover it with flooring. Here are some examples of how others have done it.