Get ready to be floored, custom-style

Most designers worth their salt will advise a client that the foundation of a room’s decoration begins with the rug.

This is true for a few key reasons. Generally, the rug is the most expensive single purchase and it can encompass the largest visual background. Compared to fabrics, paint colors and furniture, the selection of area rugs (and for that matter, broadlooms) are relatively limited, so it’s generally best to fall in love with a rug or broadloom first and build your dream scheme from there.

Rugs come in limited sizes. Area rugs generally come 4 feet by 6 feet, 5-by-7, 6-by-9, 8-by-10, 9-by-12, 10-by-14 and 12-by-15. And since rooms come in all sizes, finding a rug that fits perfectly can be additional criteria that challenges the process.

Especially if you are a bit of a perfectionist and prefer an even border of exposed floor surrounding your area carpet, then your search transforms into that “pushing a camel through the eye of a needle” kind of thing. And if you are particular about your perfect fabrics harmonizing ideally with your perfectly sized area rug, then you are definitely a candidate for a custom-made area carpet.

Since one of my clients recently became a candidate for a custom carpet, I found the entire process intriguing once again. A little background: John is an avid collector of antiques and was taken by the price and provenance of a worn Aubusson rug at Sotheby’s. Unbeknown to his beautiful bride, Vicky (or his unsuspecting designer, Marshall), he bid and won the prized rug for their recently-purchased classic 1930s home.

The rug was quickly delivered and proudly unfurled before wife and designer. Upon seeing it in the room, Vicky (who is the essence of delicate diplomacy) whispered, “Why, John, I could never have imagined!?”

John was less than enthusiastic when he actually beheld the ill-fitting carpet in the room. The rug’s strident pinks, bloody purples, avocado greens and unpleasant yellows did not quite fit with the couple’s soft visions of a blended beige-ish quietude.

After viewing the Aubusson, the plucky designer said, “Well, I can make almost anything work.”

And John retorted, “It’s back to Sotheby’s for this one.”

So first and foremost in the custom carpet process, I re-measured the room, taking into account the placement of the furniture. I also wanted to make sure that as you entered and exited the room via the various doorways, that you would not walk half-on or half-off the carpet. Since the wood floor wasn’t the most beautiful, I decided to take the dimension of the carpet to within one foot of the perimeter of the walls.

Keep in mind that in dining rooms, where furniture falls primarily in the center, I allow for a wider border of floor showing.

My next stop was to select a pattern suitable to the design of the room. The world was pretty much my oyster in terms of patterns, so I researched fabric motifs among carpet designs, architectural ornaments and pattern book tracery.

Once I selected the design, inspired by an antique fabric, I worked with my carpet advisor, Susan Iszak of Rug & Kilim, to figure out the scale of the pattern. Scale of a repeated pattern is extraordinarily important for the overall impact of the carpet. Ms. Iszak illustrated the same carpet—the same pattern—in different scales to show the overall impact. The larger the room, the larger the scale can be. The larger the scale, the bolder the impact will also be.

After the visually demanding Aubusson, my clients definitely wanted a more tranquil effect. So I made the pattern more diminutive than average, reducing the field’s overall drama. Luckily, though, with computer advances, once can simply point, click and view the scale changes.

The large custom carpet companies—like Stark Carpet, Patterson Flynn & Martin, Rug & Kilim, Beauvais Carpets and Rosecore Carpet Co.—used to have plantation-sized art departments where a cadre of talented artists would render your vision in pencil and gouache. The process could be endless, yet I do miss those extraordinary hand-painted renderings (very collectible, by the way.) Now they are, of course, rendered by computer.

The next step is to render one’s vision in color. Ms. Iszak gave examples of how color can alter the overall effect of the same pattern. Once again, the computer aids in this, though of course not accurately, showing how color alters, balances and enhances or detracts from your design intentions. My intentions for my clients were to bring the carpet’s colorations down to a hush so that the colors would be quite harmonious.

The hues for the carpet were selected by going through boxes of color poms. These boxes are separated by every color in the spectrum and are a sight to see with hundreds of luscious, rich and subtly different poufs of soft wool that would make any child or child within you ecstatic (I never said my job wasn’t fun!). After choosing the color poms, you then select the kind of fiber your carpet will be made of and that selection is extraordinary—wool (be it sheep, yak, llama or goat), silk, bamboo, banana leaf (extraordinarily lustrous), rayon, cotton and linen, to mention a few.

Along with fiber selection, you also must select the actual weave, which will give you the texture you are seeking. Will it be a cut pile or loop? Will it be a flat weave where you see the side of the fiber? Will you choose a sumac weave (a sort of braided technique, well executed in India) or the embroidered Aubusson weave (one of the finest weaves best for replicating an intricate pattern with shadings and multiple colors)?

Ms. Iszak and I selected a hand-woven rug in cut pile which will give a soft, lush texture, highlighted by a silk loop, which invites a glamorous sparkle to the party. The rug will be woven in Nepal and since it is a large carpet, six workers will weave it at the same time.

Ms. Iszak recommends hand-woven because the overall imperfections contribute to the rich, sophisticated texture of the piece.

Once the computer rendering, color poms and fibers have been selected, a strike-off will then be made for final approval. In Nepal, large batches of wool and silk will be dyed and spun together so that there is reasonable consistency in the carpet.

Many years ago when carpets were woven, the weaver would not have enough money or wool to complete the carpet, so the wool would be dyed at separate times and the carpet was woven at separate times. One sees these beautiful inconsistencies all the time in antique carpets. In fact, wools shorn in winter are thicker than wools shorn in summer. And wools sun-bleached and dried in the outdoors in the summer take dyes differently from wools heat-dried inside in the winter.

These differences assure that no two handmade carpets will ever be the same. They can also drive the carpet manufacturers crazy.

Once executed by a team of talented weavers, the carpet will be washed in the river (yes, the river) and laid out to dry in the sun, which will slightly lighten the colors. After this two-week process, the carpet will be rolled and transported from the mountains of Nepal to the sea. And barring any unexpected delays, John and Vicky will have their Nepalese hand-woven, silk and wool carpet, beautifully unfurled in eight months.

Patience is obviously a virtue when it comes to the process of creating and manufacturing a custom-made carpet. Interior designers and good carpet salespeople are skilled at his minutia (most of which they love) and can generally guide their clients through the process pain-free.

If budget allows, a custom carpet becomes a treasure to hand down from generation to generation that becomes only more beautiful with gentle wear and age.

Marshall Watson is a nationally recognized interior and furniture designer who lives and works in the Hamptons and New York City. Reach him at 105 West 72nd Street, Suite 9B, New York, NY 10023.