Pick a piece off the remnant wall, tell us the size you want, and we cut it and finish the edges. You walk out with an area rug in a size, color, and shape you will not find in any store.
That is the whole service, and it is one of the more useful things we do. It comes up most often for people who have measured their space, gone shopping, and discovered that the rug industry makes 5x8, 8x10, and 9x12, and their room wants something else.
A customer wrote to us this spring looking for a dark beige 8x10 for a camp, with a budget around two hundred dollars, and asked what it would cost to have a remnant bound if we did not have one prebound. Exactly the right question to ask.
Binding and serging, in plain terms
Both do the same job: stop the cut edge of a carpet from fraying. They look different.
Binding wraps the edge in a strip of tape, typically cotton or a synthetic blend, and stitches it down. You see the tape as a band around the perimeter, usually about an inch and a quarter wide. It sits flat, it is durable, and it is the more economical of the two. Tape comes in a lot of colors, so you can match the carpet or deliberately contrast it. A charcoal rug with a cream binding looks intentional.
Serging wraps yarn around the edge in a tight continuous stitch, so the finish looks like a rope edge that is part of the rug rather than something added to it. It is softer, it looks more like a finished area rug, and it costs more because it uses more material and more time.
Which one to use is mostly a question of the carpet and the room.
Thick, plush, high-pile carpet takes serging well because the yarn edge sits into the pile. A flat, low-profile carpet or a level loop looks cleaner with binding, because a serged edge on a thin carpet can look bulky next to it.
For a rug that is going under a dining table or in a high traffic spot, binding is the tougher finish. For a bedroom rug that people walk on barefoot, serging feels better at the edges.
Shapes you can actually get
This is where a custom rug earns its keep.
- Rectangles and squares in any dimension, which is the usual request
- Runners for a hallway, cut to the exact length so it stops where you want it to
- Ovals and circles for under a round table or in an entry
- L-shapes for a room with a bump-out or a landing that turns
Curves cost more per linear foot than straight edges, because the edge finish has to be eased around the radius rather than run straight. Worth knowing before you fall in love with a circle.
We do the cutting and finishing on site, which is why the turnaround is a few days rather than a few weeks.
Why this is often cheaper than buying a rug
An 8x10 is 80 square feet, which is a little under nine square yards. Off the remnant wall, that is one piece of first-quality carpet at remnant pricing, plus 36 linear feet of edge finishing.
Compare that against a retail 8x10 in a comparable quality and the math usually favors the remnant, and you get to choose the exact color instead of taking what a chain store stocked.
It also means you can make a rug out of carpet, which is a category most rug stores do not sell. If you want a dense wool loop or a soft nylon plush in rug form, this is how you get it.
Sizing a rug for a room
A few rules that hold up:
Living room. The rug should be big enough that at least the front legs of every seat sit on it. A rug that floats in the middle with all the furniture off it makes the room look smaller.
Dining room. Measure the table and add 24 inches on every side, so chairs stay on the rug when they are pulled out. A 40 by 72 inch table wants roughly an 8x10.
Bedroom. Either a large rug that extends about two feet past the sides and foot of the bed, or two runners down each side. Under-bed rugs that stop halfway look like an accident.
Hallway. Leave three to five inches of floor showing on each side, and stop the runner a few inches short of any doorway.
Bring those numbers with you and the whole conversation takes five minutes.
Pads matter
A bound rug on a hard floor needs a pad under it. Without one it slides, it wears through faster, and it creeps out of position.
Get a pad cut about an inch smaller than the rug on every side so it does not peek out at the edges.
What to bring us
Your dimensions, a rough idea of the color, and the shape. If you have a photo of the room, bring that too, because the light in a room tells you more about whether a color will work than the swatch does.
We are at 2855 Saw Mill Run Blvd on Route 51. Parking is behind the building. If you want to see finished examples first, there are real bound rugs in our project gallery, and the current remnant stock is on the site.
Call (412) 885-1444 or send us your size and we will price it out.
