Sometimes you find the perfect rug, one that adds the desired comfort to your space and shows off your designer eyes and amazing taste, but there’s just one problem, the rug you love so much is too big to match your space.
Also, sometimes you go to a store to buy an accent rug, and you notice that all rugs displayed for sale are a lot bigger than the space you have to cover. These rugs are sold per yard. This means that they are more suited to be used as area rugs than as accent rugs. A lot of people find it difficult to find accent rugs at their local carpet stores.
The good news, though, is that you don’t have to give up on a rug you love just because it’s too big for your space.
Getting a rug resized is a straightforward solution that will give your rug the right shape and size that best complements your room. All you need is to get the rug cut and bound so that it has the size of an accent rug for your floor. This begs the question: In what places can one get a rug cut and bound?
Places to Cut and Bind Your Rug
Places to cut and bind a rug around you include:
Local Carpet and Flooring Stores
One option to get your rug cut and bound is by visiting local carpet and flooring stores. Here are some of them.
Family-Owned Specialty Carpet Businesses
There are probably experts all around you that specialize in selling, cutting, and binding carpets, but you’ll never know them until you search on Yelp or run a simple internet search. Typing in the words, ‘places to cut and bind a rug near me’ in an internet search engine would bring out several options for businesses close to your house that would cut and bind a rug for you.
These kinds of businesses, mostly small-scale, can be found all over the country. To make things easier for you, run a simple internet search to get their contact details and confirm their prices, and then give them a call to make sure they offer the service you need before going to their offices.
This is the easiest way to custom-make any rug of your choice. If you purchase a rug from these businesses, they will cut, overlock, and install them for little to no extra charge. However, they may not be willing to offer these services if you do not first buy the rug from them.
Asides from small-scale businesses, most carpet retailers that run a warehouse-style business also offer cutting and binding services. Big departmental stores near you that sell rugs would also throw in the added service of cutting and binding them. For instance:
Home Depot
There’s a high chance that there’s a Home Depot store at your place. Home Depot sells custom-bound rugs; this means that these rugs are made to order. They also cut and bind other kinds of rugs to your specifications, provided you purchase the rugs at their store.
Sometimes you might buy several yards of rugs for wall-to-wall carpeting and have some leftover pieces after installation. Home Depot would help you put these leftover pieces to good use by binding them to make an accent rug. This is the best way to repurpose your carpet remnants, and the best part is that you don’t have to pay for it.
Lowe’s
Like Home Depot, Lowe’s is a well-known home improvement store, and most of its stores offer in-house carpet cutting and binding services.
Asides from cutting and binding your carpet, Lowe’s also sells remnants, so once you buy the remnant carpets from them, you don’t have to go anywhere else to have them bound. Some Lowe’s stores offer the cutting and binding service for free, while some charge for this service.
Online Services
If you’re short on time or can’t seem to find any brick-and-mortar stores nearby, there are several online cut-and-bound rug services available such as Koeckritz Rugs.
These online services offer a wide range of customization options, from custom sizes to various patterns, colors, and materials. By reaching out to them via phone or email, they can help guide you through the process and find the best options for your needs
How to Cut and Bind Your Rugs (DIY)
If you have the appropriate tools, it is possible to cut and bind your carpets all by yourself.
There are numerous DIY methods for customizing a rug, and no matter the method you chose, you need a lot of patience and technique to pull it off. When making a custom rug, your first aim would be to preserve the rug’s structural integrity.
The binding and finishing techniques are not too easy, so when making a custom rug, try to make as few changes to the original rug as possible.
For instance, don’t try to change a rectangular rug to a round one. Furthermore, DIYs are easier when you’re trying to make small rugs for small spaces. The last thing to note is that when making your custom rugs, it’s better to use less expensive factory-made rugs rather than luxurious handmade ones.
Long story short, depending on the material your rug is made of, DIY cutting and binding may not be the best idea. The steps to resizing your rug include:
Measure the Rug and the Area
Measure the area where you would like to place the rug. Measure it twice to be sure there are no mistakes. Once you cut the rug, you can’t go back, and for this reason, you must get your measurements right before the first cut.
To make cutting a lot easier, you should fold up the rug along the lines where you plan to cut and then place it in that position where you are going to finally lay it, just to have an idea of how it would look after you’re done.
Marking
You can also use some painters’ tape to mark out the areas you’re planning to cut. To mark a rug, you need a ruler or straight edge to control the tape placement.
When you’re done marking, double-check the markings by measuring again before cutting the rug.
Cutting
To cut a rug, you have to first put it across a flat, strong surface. You will need to use shears to cut if you are working with a thick rug. Otherwise, you can use a carpeting knife.
Finishing Your Carpet Edges
After cutting, you must find a way to finish your rug’s edges, or else it becomes a huge safety hazard just lying in the middle of your room and tripping people; Asides from that, if the edges of the rug are not finished, they may begin to unravel from those edges.
There are two options for finishing your carpet edges: you can take it to a rug store and have it bound professionally, or you can do it yourself.
Binding an Unfinished Carpet Yourself
To bind a carpet at home, you’ll need scissors, some hot glue, some pieces of the same carpet, and Instabind. Spread out the carpet on a large flat, sturdy surface so that all the edges are visible. Bind the carpet with adhesive along all edges. It is worth noting that not all carpets can be bound.
For instance, cutting and binding a carpet with prints might not be such a good idea because the prints might appear irregular at the end of the project. More still, some carpets are made from materials that bind easily, but others are made from hard-to-bind materials such as jute.
Is it Easy to Cut and Bind a Rug Yourself?
It is possible to cut and bind your rug if you follow the steps explained above; however, it is a really difficult task to pull off. For this reason, many people prefer to just drop off the rug with a professional carpet store and pick it off after it’s been cut and bound.
Carpets bound by professionals are a lot more secure and might look a lot straighter than ones done at home. Professionals use a couple of edge finishing processes that can’t be done at home. Such as;
Binding
Carpet shops have carpet binding machines that they use to wrap and stitch a strip of cotton or polyester fabric around the edges of a carpet, thereby binding it.
This method is easy to do and very inexpensive compared to other ways of finishing carpet edges. Binding fabrics are available in many colors.
Serging
A serged carpet edge consists of thick fiber continuously wrapped around the carpet edge. The end look is usually more luxurious than when you use a binding machine.
Most factory-manufactured area rugs are usually serged. Rugs can be serged in various colors. Serging requires a special machine. It is more expensive than binding, and when done properly, serged edges appear hand-sewn.
Fringing
This is a more expensive method of rug finishing. As the name implies, it involves putting a fringe on the edges of a rug. Handmade rugs are fringed for practical purposes, i.e., to stop the rug from unraveling from around the edges. Machine-made rugs, on the other hand, are fringed for their aesthetics.
A lot of people love having fringed area rugs in their homes; however, some people complain that the fringed parts of the rug are difficult to clean.
How Much Does It Cost to Have a Rug Cut and Bound?
In most cases, when you buy a carpet from a carpet store, they would usually offer a free cutting and binding service.
However, if you can’t find a free service, then you should budget anything from $2-$5 per linear foot depending on the job’s complexity and the binding tape’s type.
Some professional services like McFarlands Carpet provide online estimators to help you calculate approximate linear foot measurements and estimated pricing based on your preferences. Note that the estimates do not include any shipping, handling fees, or insurance.
