Handy People

Washing rug on a summer's day
Washing rug on a summer’s day

How did this whole do-it-yourself thing get going so strong? Is it the bad economy or just the availability of cheap tools? Anyone who’s shopped for a house knows how bad a home remodeling job can be. Didn’t it used to be that you’d hire a craftsman for those sorts of things or a rug cleaning service to clean your rugs?

We bought this rug many years ago at Jacobsen’s on Salina Street in downtown Syracuse. We have a few Oriental rugs in our house and they all need washing. It’s our own fault. We don’t take our shoes off when we come in from outdoors, only when we’ve been hiking. We used to call Asian people “Orientals” and I’m glad we swapped that word out. We need a better one for these rugs. I think this one came from the former Soviet Union and “Oriental” just doesn’t seem right.

We decided to clean the rugs ourselves so we’ve borrowed Rick and Monica’s paved driveway (ours is stone) for the last few days and we’ve set up shop over there. I wear my bathing suit We found a page on Jacobsen’s site about cleaning rugs and I watched a few YouTube videos. A lot of people don’t recommend doing it yourself, mostly because it is so much work but we’ve just skipped our daily walk and we work out over there.

We bought a 12″ squeegee, a natural bristle brush and a wooden pole/handle at Black’s Hardware. I put the squeegee on one end of the pole and the brush on the other. We’re using Ivory dishwashing soap and cold water from the faucet and there is a long line of water running down our steamy road.

1 Comment

One Reply to “Handy People”

  1. Well, well, well? Has it dried yet? What a be-yoo-tee-ful rug. We gave most of ours up because of one cat’s habits….

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