#What are the care and cleaning instructions of hand tufted rugs

[globalfloor]

It is clear that both hand-knotted and hand-tufted rugs offer a plethora of benefits for homeowners. Hand-knotted rugs are usually more expensive due to the laborious work required in weaving them, but they can last for generations if properly taken care of. On the other hand, tufted carpets provide easier cleaning since their materials often repel dirt and dust better than those used in knotted ones. Ultimately, it all comes down to preference – determine which type best suits your needs before investing in either!

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[zrtranscripts]

Home Front, Mission 19: The Madman’s Crown

Clobber that Cleaning

~

[radio cycles past a snippet of music and some static before landing on the Abel frequency]

SAM YAO: [dramatic narrator voice] Welcome back, travellers, to the thrilling tale of adventure and cleaning that is The Lair of the Abhorroghast. [own voice] Now I don't know about you, but my old shack is looking better already. I can actually see the floor again! Um, now actually, if any of you runners happen to find a Carpet World next time you're out there, I could really use a rug or something.

Anyway, uh, where were we? Ah, yes. Yes. When I left you, you and your companions, halfling rogue Kit and elven wizard Ameline had just mopped up the contents of the Pit of Woe. Ameline conjured a tidal wave that swept the three of you through the tunnels beneath the pit and further into the dungeon.

And as the guy who cooked up this whole adventure, I can predict you'll need some oven cleaning elixirs, scrubbing brushes, and bin bags for the next chapter. Oh, also, make sure your floors and surfaces are clear of clutter. So don your rubber gloves of cleanliness, gird what your mother gave you, and let's return to our quest to cleanse the Lair of the Abhorroghast. But first, here's a song that always puts me in the Pit of Woe.

~

[SAM alternates between a dramatic game master voice for narration, different voices for characters, and his own voice for asides and cleaning instruction

SAM YAO: When the flood waters ebb away, you find yourself bedraggled but alive on the floor of a long narrow cave, but instead of the darkness you have come to expect, the ceiling glitters and the walls gleam. Every surface of the cave is studded with shimmering white crystals that here and there seem to grow in crude faces and other all-too-human shapes.

“Don't move,” hisses Kit. “Don't speak too loud. There's something fishy about this place.” Ameline scoffs. “We've lost enough time to your antics already. Come, adventurer, this way!” But Ameline is cut off by a sudden crunching noise. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch one of the crystal faces grin and then the walls begin to close in! “The water's running that way,” whispers Kit, pointing to the cave's far end. “There must be a door, a switch, a secret passage. Search quick, friend, and search careful, or this crystal cave'll crush us yet.”

Yeah, so what I thought was we'd start with cleaning windows. Spooky crystals, glass, basically the same thing. If you have window cleaner, that works great, but if you don't have Janine's slightly scary doomsday stockpile of cleaning products, you can use vinegar and scrunched up newspaper! Apparently it works great, if you don't mind your house smelling like a fish and chip shop.

Anyway, Ameline is frozen with fear, but Kit creeps along the edge of the room, following the flow of the knee-deep water and running his hands over the walls. As the walls close in, you have little choice but to follow his lead. Hmm. So uh, yeah, get polishing.

~

[SAM alternates between a dramatic game master voice for narration, different voices for characters, and his own voice for asides and cleaning instruction

SAM YAO: As the crystal cave folds in on itself, you have to stoop to avoid being crushed. And then, beneath the flowing water, you spot what looks like a crystal lever growing out of the floor. It takes some effort to pull. When you do, the cave shakes, the walls stop moving, and suddenly the crystal wall ahead parts like a pair of curtains and the water gushes through. You, Kit, and Ameline stumble after it into the searing heat and brilliant light.

Emerging from the crystal cave, you find yourself at the edge of a great chasm in the earth. On the opposite side is an open gate of red stone carved into the rock like a wound. Magma spills from either side of the gate in rivers, sending up tufts of steam where the lava and running water meet.

Before you can take in the sight, the sound of leathery wings echoes above. A host of winged demons claw their way out of the very rock and swoop towards you. Yeah. Yeah, it's the chore that all mortals dread, cleaning the oven. Ministry guidelines suggest not letting grime and greasy black bits build up even in the apocalypse. So prepare to face the fiends of the Infernus Cavern!

Of course, if you don't have an oven, fiends are notoriously fond of gutters, that bit underneath heavy furniture where dry peas and misplaced figurines turn up, the back of the fridge, that... Well, you know. Basically this is the time to do that one horrible household task you hate.

Back in the Lair of the Abhorroghast, Kit snarls as he ducks the demons' razor claws. "These fiends, doomed to serve as jailers of the Abhorroghast for all eternity,” Ameline explains. “Defeat them, pass the red gate, and the treasure is as good as ours.” [scrubbing sound] You want that treasure, don't you? So keep scrubbing.

~

[SAM alternates between a dramatic game master voice for narration, different voices for characters, and his own voice for asides and cleaning instruction

SAM YAO: Oh, that wasn't so bad, was it? And the oven looks amazing! Now then, where were we? [paper rustles] Ah. Ah yes. Right. Fiends. All around you lie the bodies of vanquished demons, their leathery wings strewn on the bloodred stone. Together, you, Kit, and Ameline pass through the door in the rock and enter the pitch black passages beyond.

As soon as you cross the threshold, you feel a deathly chill. Yeah, this is a very hot and cold dungeon, isn't it? You are not alone. Something is slithering through the tunnels behind you, something big, seeking you out. Holding your torches aloft, you see a vast tentacle advancing along the ceiling above and reaching down towards you.

Yes, it's time to clean out the shower drain! I always thought that little hole resembled something from an elder dimension, but you know, the grossness is the challenge. All you really need are rubber gloves and a bin bag. And once the Abhorroghast's tentacles are driven back to the dark dimension from whence they oozed, cleanse the pit around with scouring potions or whatever bathroom cleaner you've got to hand.

Tentacles pulse above and around you as you advance through the corridors of jet black stone. As Ameline drives back a thrashing tentacle with the light from the end of her staff, she cries, “Adventurer, with me! Our only chance is to find its heart!”

As Kit distracts the tendrils, ducking and weaving to avoid the blows of the Abhorroghast’s alien limbs. Ameline leads the way deeper into the labyrinth, her glowing staff your only guide. And remember to keep cleaning the drain with those scouring potions as you go. Scrubbety scrub.

~

[SAM alternates between a dramatic game master voice for narration, different voices for characters, and his own voice for asides and cleaning instruction

SAM YAO: Your blade sweeps through a thrashing tentacle, one two, one two. It recoils back through the twisting corridors of the labyrinth. Ameline leads you and Kit through to a chamber of black stone in the center around a pool as dark as ink. As her staff casts a wan light around the chamber, you see something glittering in the gloom. “Arr, treasure!” Kit cries, unable to conceal his delight. Ameline holds him back. “We've no time to be greedy,” she says. “Find the crown quickly, before the monster returns.”

All right, you're not very likely to find treasure in the bathroom. Unless, well, unless you're really into the digestive system. But that sink still needs cleaning, so let's get it glittering again. [piled coins clink] You search the piles of gold until your hands close around a golden circlet studded all around with black opals. The Madman's Crown.

The discovery does not go unnoticed. Ameline smiles, reaches out her hand, and says, “I knew you were special from the moment we first met above. Come, I'll take the crown.” “Arr, and who'd be fool enough to trust ye with it?” Kit snaps. “This isn't something you can melt down for beer money, halfling,” Ameline retorts. “It grants the power of the mad wizards who built this place to the head that wears it.”

As they argue, you begin to wonder, is the chamber shaking? Is that rumbling growing louder? Something is slithering from the depths of the pool, a mass of long questing tendrils. Ameline strides towards you, holding out her hand imperiously as she demands, “Enough of this charade! Give me the crown now!”

Behind her, Kit cries out, “Adventurer, to me! Don't let her have it!” The chamber shakes violently. Ameline’s staff glows with power. Before the spell pins you to the wall, you hurl the crown away and Kit the halfling catches it. “Much obliged,” he grins.

“Arr, but really, ye shouldn't trust either of us.” He gives a little bow as Ameline joins him. “I can't believe that worked,” she gloats. “I'm afraid Kit and I have been, as they say, in cahoots. Now there's an eldritch horror on the way and Kit and I have a reward to collect for this old relic, so ta ta!”

With the Madman's Crown in their possession, the treacherous pair flee, leaving you to face the Abhorroghast alone. Its vast, slimy bulk rises from the pool, a thousand bloodshot eyes fix upon you.

Right, yeah, that's those rubber gloves on. This is it, the last household task, and the nastiest. Can you clean your loo, or will the eldritch horror that lurks within it snack on your sanity? See you on the other side, adventurer.

~

SAM YAO: [dramatic narrator voice] Mortally wounded, the Abhorroghast shrinks back into the water, its tentacles recede as it drags its glistening bulk back to the hellish dimension from whence it came. The chamber is silent. All that's left is the treasure of the Abhorroghast's lair and the long trek back to the surface world. You shudder as you remember that somewhere out there, the traitors Kit and Ameline are making off with an artifact of terrible power.

But as you dig through the piled gold and silver of the lair, something catches your attention. Ameline’s spell book. In her haste to get away, the elf must have dropped it among the coins and precious stones. It lies open on a pile of necklaces. Sketched within, surrounded by mystic runes and diagrams, is a circle of wizardly figures. As fire falls upon the world, they are bowing down to one in their midst, one who wears the Madman's Crown. Whatever plans those two have for the artifact, they don't look good.

[own voice] But that's an adventure for another day. You've slain the monster made of hair that lurked in the shower drain, dusted for traps on your sideboard, vanquished the slaughterworms of filth and whatever else was making your home less, well, homely. Now it may not seem important compared to hordes of zombies or world-ending catastrophes, but just like playing Demons and Darkness, having a good tidy once in a while can help you feel like you have some control over the world around you. I reckon that's something a lot of us could do with right now.

Like... like pulling an eldritch monster from the shower drain, if we protect ourselves, pitch in, put up with some discomfort for the greater good, we can get through this. And when it's all over, we'll have somewhere worth living in, which is how every adventure ends, isn't it? You go home having made things just a little better than before, a little bit at a time.

~

[patricia-von-arundel]

First two no-context angst excerpts! These are from Follow the String and The Boarding House AU, respectively. I’ll be working on The Campaign and Shards tonight, hopefully.

Excuse typos - I’m getting these up while I can, I’ll have to look them over again later. 

From Follow the String: 

Elsa. 

She had the name again. But for how long? A name, a hasty, uneven, desperate sketch of a place she could never go - it was useless. Meaningless. It changed nothing, and it never would. She had to face that - and accept it. 

The details might be gone, but she remembered the absolute thrill of it. A real, honest-to-goodness adventure. She’d never been so happy, had never dreamed that rather than having to chase something beyond home and school and work, that something might come to her instead. She’d eagerly awaited bedtime - and that was a first - because bedtime meant going to... to the other place. 

“Arendelle.” Whispered, but fiercely - how could she forget? How could she forget again? It made no sense. 

But none of this made any sense. Especially -

“Anna?” Kristoff’s voice - but surprisingly gentle. He knew. He was the only person who knew. “Aren’t you going to try to get some sleep? It’s a long way back tomorrow.”

She turned to him, trying to force a smile. He had clearly been asleep, his hair tousled and tufted, eyes squinting even in the dim light from the desk lamp. “I will soon. Sorry. I just - “ But something broke in her voice. 

And then inside her. She bit her lip, hard, but still one tear fell, and then another, and another, until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. And then she was sobbing, helpless against it, her hands gripping her legs, right above the knees, her shoulders shaking, her eyes squeezed shut and her breath coming in desperate, helpless little hitches. 

“Oh, hey - “ But that was all Kristoff could find to say, and some part of her, even though all the pain, wanted to giggle at how awkward he must feel, faced with the crazy girl who’d dragged him out here now having a breakdown in the middle of the night. 

She managed to raise one hand. ‘I’m okay. I’m...” Her breath caught, and she sniffled, hard and long and for the moment completely without embarrassment. “I’m okay.” She wiped her palms against her cheeks. It didn’t help - stubborn tears were still falling. 

“You sure about that?” Skepticism in his voice, but Kristoff took a step closer. Just one, but he was trying. He was a good guy. And...

Well, and she was beginning to believe the other girl - Elsa, Elsa, Elsa! - was right. He liked her. Crazy as it was...  

She tried again to force a smile, wipe the tears away. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to... talk, or anything?” He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it even more. 

She shook her head. “It’s okay. Thanks. You have to drive tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Just... probably just tired, too. I’m about to go to bed.”

But it was some time yet before she did. She stared at the sketch - her desperate attempt to capture it all, before it was gone. She traced her index finger along the jagged, broken outline of the mountain. She’d been there. It was real. The village, the people, and that mountain. She knew it was real. 

But already, the memories were facing once more. She clung to them - but they slipped away. 

Elsa. 

Elsa.

Elsa. 

Like her own heart was fading. And the only part she wanted it to take - the truth. Reality. The new knowledge that had been the only reward of this long, desperate trip:

The knowledge of Elsa’s death. 

From The Boarding House AU:

Compared to the castle in Arendelle, it was a hovel. Small, the walls covered in thin paint - boards were visible beneath - the rugs threadbare, the windows small and shuttered against spring chill. But compared to before...

It was small, yes, but clean and neat and well-kept. She’d arrived to find a woman sweeping the narrow hallway, another dusting the weathered-looking sconces on the parlor walls. Except here it wasn’t a parlor, it was a sitting room. 

(And even after all this time, how was there so much she didn’t know?)

There were no piles of books, no rickety desk, no stack of blankets and towels in the corner because there was no extra chest or wardrobe in which to keep them. The fireplaces were large and clear of a lengthy build-up of soot. There was no smell of that soot, either, nor of mildew, damp, rot. 

Her room, like the home itself, was small but neat. A narrow bed against one wall, a table and chair against the wall opposite, with a three-drawer chest beside it. Three drawers - the things Elsa had brought in her little cloth bag had not even filled one. A round rug at the foot of the bed and a porcelain basin on the chest of drawers, and that was everything in the room - everything but Elsa herself. The feeling of it was more than clean - it was sterile. 

Once, she might have longed for such. Quiet, clean solitude - she had been told she would be expected to help take part in caring for the home, chores or cooking, but she was under no obligation to socialize. Nor did she want to - even her quiet attempt at greeting the woman who ran the place had led to stares and whispers, and the conversations she’d heard were almost impossible to understand, her own language turned harsh and unfamiliar. She was embarrassed of her own speech, and even more so at the certainty that many of those conversations were about her. 

So she had closed the door to her small, sterile room - closed the door, as she had done for so many years previously. She had ignored the bell for dinner, but had, as instructed, snuffed out the lamp when the clock downstairs struck nine. 

But no one had told her any rules regarding curtains, and so she had left them open, to let in the moonlight. It reminded her of the first few months she had spent with Alarik - watching an alien world from the single window of a single room. The narrow street below, and the people who walked it - some on a schedule, those going off to work or school, leaving early and returning late; others erratic, like the old women trudging towards the market, or the children chasing and shouting after one another, but she had come to recognize them all. Strangers were very rare - and no surprise, because why would anyone venture to that dirty, crumbling corner of the world unless they were a part of it? 

She had been a part of it. She would not have realized it at the time, too overwhelmed by all that had happened in what now seemed a completely different life. And now she’d been sent off to a third, as helpless to choose her own circumstances as she’d always been; her choices were made by others. Attempting to make them herself had almost led to her death - and far worse, to Anna’s death. 

So she would accept this new reality, just as she had the last.

Of course she would. 

But she couldn’t get it out of her head - the expression on Alarik’s face as he left her, the way he had walked away, almost too quickly, his hands deep in his pockets and his head down, and her own heartbeat, quickened by the knowledge that it wasn’t just Alarik leaving her, but also Anna. There would be no more letters, just a hope of catching glimpses of Arendelle in cast-aside newspapers. 

As it had to be. 

She pushed up from her place on the bed and went to look out over hew new view. By moonlight, the church across the yard looked eerie and abandoned, the windows black holes in the darkness, and the city beyond the walls was oddly silent. She had never been here until today - a long, uncomfortable walk from Alarik’s new room by the river. 

The look on his face - how often had she struggled to understand the ways he sometimes looked at her? Smiles that came from nowhere, raising his eyebrows. None of that today, though. He’d just looked confused and almost... sad?

You’re conflating.

It didn’t matter, regardless. She would never see him again. She wondered if he would write to Anna - he’d encouraged Elsa to do so, but she had refused. No matter how carefully coded the message, it might put Anna in danger. Elsa was not going to risk that. Never, ever again. 

But maybe Alarik would tell Anna that Elsa was all right. 

Maybe one day, she would be. 

Even without Anna.

Even without...

No. She pushed that thought away. 

But it didn’t take with it the mental image of the expression on his face as he turned to go. Or the way his voice had sounded when he told her goodbye, then hurried away. 

Finally rid of his burden. 

[cosmopolitancarpetrugcleaning]

Tips for Area Rug Cleaning and Care

Is your area rug looking a little worse for wear? No matter what kind of area rug you have, proper rug cleaning and care should be followed to keep it looking fresh and clean.

TYPES OF AREA RUGS There are several different types of material from which area rugs are made, which can affect what kind of cleaning products and processes can be used on them.

These include:

Wool Silk Cotton Synthetic

There are also different techniques of rug construction, which can also affect cleaning methods. Type of rugs include:

Hand-made Machine made Woven Tufted Braided Rugs come in all shapes and sizes. Runners are skinny rugs designed to run down hallways, and entry rugs are often smaller and may have fringed edges or tassels. Area rugs are perfect for protecting carpet or hardwood in high traffic areas, and can keep feet warm in the winter when laid over linoleum or tile. Keep in mind that rubber backing or pads can discolor with age and could potentially stain or discolor your carpet where the area rug is placed.

Many rugs simply become dingy or worn over time due to dirt and debris carried on the bottoms of shoes, human feet, or animal paws. Some rugs may become stained if a pet has an accident or food or drink is spilled or a child throws up. Pet accidents on natural fiber rugs can cause dry rot if the urine is not removed.

SPOT TREATING AND CLEANING AN AREA RUG Spot cleaning can be used for small area. Don’t be tempted to use a household cleaner or bleach or to scrub at the rug, as this can damage the rug and cause the spot to become a permanent stain. Instead, remove any solid waste, and blot carefully with a white cotton towel.

If the rugs is bleeding color onto the towel, stop and pack the area with baking soda to stop the color bleed. If not, lift the rug, place a towel beneath the spot, and sponge the affected surface gently with club soda, alternately blotting with a clean towel until the spot is gone. Prop the rug up for air circulation above and below to dry the rug and prevent mildew.

The Dry Guys provide spot cleaning kits which are safe for most rugs, although you should test the cleaning solution in an unobtrusive corner of the rug first to ensure it is colorfast. Also included with each kit are instructions for removing spots from your area rug.

If spot cleaning is unsuccessful, contact the Dry Guys to safely clean your area rug. With proper care, your area rug could last for years!

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