Rugs and carpets aren’t necessarily a must-have, but they level up how a room looks and feels. Homes usually have a rug or two in different living spaces and sometimes even in the bedroom. There are budget-friendly options, but there are costlier rugs that require much more care to maintain. Otherwise, once you have dirty carpets across your home, the purpose for having them in the first place is defeated.
With all the must-dos to accomplish on your daily list, it’s not at all surprising how taking care of your carpet could easily be the last thing you’d think of doing, no matter how precious or expensive that rug is. The good news is it doesn’t take up so much of your time to get this done, as there are efficient and effective ways to keep your rugs and carpets well-maintained, prolonging their life.
Here are five of those ways.
- Send Your Rugs To Professional Care
First is perhaps one of the most effective and failproof ways of extending a carpet’s life. This is to send them to the professionals that can assist with your rugs once every so often. A time frame of once every six months is good enough. Even if you’re on top of the care and maintenance, nothing beats sending it to the professionals for a deep and thorough clean.
The edge professionals have over your regular cleaning is brought about by their skills and the high-powered tools and equipment you may not have. Remember, different types of carpets come with varying instructions for care. Unfortunately, if those aren’t followed, you could be doing your carpets more harm than good.
2. Vacuum Your Carpets Often
What’s a household without a vacuum? Most have one now, so if you’re one of those that doesn’t have a vacuum, it’s time to consider investing in a good one seriously. It’s as much a time-saver as it is life-changing. With a vacuum, keeping your floors can quickly be done, no matter how busy your schedule may be. You can think of your vacuum as your best friend, particularly if you have quite a number of rugs and carpets at home.
Vacuuming often is a simple daily cleaning habit that does wonders in keeping your carpets well-maintained, which in turn forms the foundation of potentially increasing your carpets’ lifespan.
How often this has to be done differs according to your household’s circumstances. Those with young children and pets must vacuum at least twice daily to keep up with pet dander and food crumbs. If you live alone, once a day or even every other day will do.
3. Clean Up Spills Right Away
Spills are the top enemy of any fabric, whether furniture or carpets. The longer you allow spills to stay, the more they’ll settle and the filthier they’ll become. This situation makes cleaning what could’ve been a small and easy spill harder.
Don’t put this off until later. It doesn’t take much to clean and wipe spills right away. You can stop it from getting out of hand with a quick wipe-down.
4. Minimize Direct Sunlight
Having natural light in your home is good, but you must also balance what’s acceptable and what is already too much. Crossing the line over to the latter destroys UV-sensitive items at home, including rugs and carpets.
Ultraviolet rays from direct sunlight cause carpets to fade very quickly. This ‘bakes’ the carpet’s fiber, causing the texture to be brittle and decompose faster.
An excellent solution to avoid this is to have window treatments ready when the sun gets too bright. These can be blinds, curtains, shades, or whatever you fancy having for your home.
5. Implement A Shoe Ban Inside Your Home
Bringing outside shoes inside the home should be a top no-no. Imagine getting in dirt from the outside, inside, where your home should instead be your safe haven, where it’s clean, neat, and well-organized. If you need footwear inside your home, have a basket of house slippers ready to give your guests upon entry.
This rule is effective for hygienic purposes and reducing all the heavy load of dirt your floors and carpets must take. The less dirt you bring when walking around your home, the happier your carpets will be. This means that they won’t have to take as much of a beating as they may have used to when you brought shoes in.
The Bottomline
The steps you take to extend your rugs’ and carpets’ lifespan translate to even more benefits for the whole household. Topping the list are the aesthetic functions where now, your rugs achieve their primary function of improving the home’s look and feel. Because you’re able to prolong its life, you don’t have to shop for new ones every so often. This is important, especially if you have quite a collection of higher-end carpets. Lucky for homeowners today, taking care of rugs doesn’t have to be a taxing chore, as doing so isn’t a one-person show. Call in the help of the experts, and you’ll have carpets that look new, regardless of age.
