Our Beautiful Sarouk (Persian) Rug...

Our Sarouk rug shown in the living room of our Florida home.

We've owned this gorgeous Sarouk rug for nearly forty years. Handsome's brother owned it prior to that, and he purchased it from an estate in Chicago, Illinois. We purchased it when we bought our first home, and it's been in the last two homes since. It measures 21'6" long x 10'6" wide.

In fact, when we built our second home, the main living space was sized to accommodate it - and make it the centerpiece of the living room. When we moved to the farmhouse, we hoped it would span the two front rooms (our living and dining rooms) as it's certainly long enough. However, the archway between those two rooms only measures 8' wide. 

Our younger son had it for a while prior to our move, hoping to use it in our granddaughters' shared bedroom space, but the addition of a large closet shortened the room just enough so they couldn't use it. It was folded, rolled, tied, and placed in the basement of the farmhouse. The basement is and has always been dry so that wasn't an issue. 

We planned to move it upstairs much sooner than now, but in addition to being beautiful it also has a wonderful thick pile, so it's heavy. So heavy in fact, that it was impossible for Handsome and me to move it. So there it languished...until yesterday.

We'd placed another favorite large Oriental rug we've also had since Florida in the living room, with a separate one under our dining room table. The living room rug had to be cleaned, so Handsome took it to a company in Milwaukee. That rug came home yesterday, and we'd made arrangements for their workmen to move the Sarouk from the basement out to our cement-floor pole barn so we could assess whether or not there was any damage to it since it's been downstairs. We knew it too was going to need cleaning, and the (!#@&) mice had chewed the fringe off. We were praying that there was no other damage to it.

So, it finally came out of the basement and was unrolled for the first time in all these years. Handsome and I stood with our fingers crossed as it was again open and flat on the floor. Although it was dusty and needed a good bath, we were relieved to see that there was NO other damage.

We went back and forth from the house to the barn, taking measurements, and confirmed that it won't fit in the front rooms as is. There were also calls to a Sarouk/Persian/Oriental rug dealer to see what we might be able to realize if we sold it after we restore the fringe and clean it. The amount he quoted was much less than we paid for it, but we recognize it's a unique size and would need to find the perfect buyer willing to pay our price, which isn't likely to happen. As we've had it for as long as we have, it certainly doesn't owe us anything, but we will have to put some more money into it. We love it enough to do that, but how to make it work for us?

We know the first thing to take place will be a deep cleaning. The fringe will be replaced, but after taking more measurements, we're floating the idea of cutting it down. I know. I know. But how else can we use it if we don't - short of building a new home or remodeling the archway in the living room to gain another two feet?

We may call our carpenter, Jeff and find out just how much it would cost (and if it's even feasible) to open the archway to accommodate the rug's current width, because the alternative is to keep the length, but cut off the sides where the cream border (that you can see in the foreground) begins. That would bring the width measurement down to 7' 6" (which would fit inside the archway as it is right now). We'd keep it the existing length of 21' 6".

The rug left here late yesterday. They'll clean it first and then get back to us to find out how to proceed. We'll be discussing it here and gathering more information until we make our final decision. Stay tuned...