Good as new!

In 2004 I purchased a beautiful, enormous, and very expensive (to me) area rug for the living room in our house in Northridge. Our couches were red, the walls were a very light peach color, almost white, and the floor was parquet, installed by hand by my husband, in the days before we had children to get in the way of such projects. The space was very big and in my opinion demanded the perfect area rug. I fell in love with this design at Crate and Barrel, but naturally it was way out of my league, cost-wise, so I stalked this rug for months, visiting it whenever I happened by a store, touching it, feeling it, telling it that someday we’d be together. I saved money every month and checked its price online often. Eventually it went on sale, and in the fall it finally came to live in our house, perfectly tying the elements of the room together.

my beloved area rug in our previous house

Even though our decor changed when we moved to Agoura Hills, the rug was still perfect because of its multicolored design. But for the last three years, as we gradually painted the dark oak paneling white in our living room (click here to see the before and after photos), the rug was rolled up and stored in the garage. It suffered from neglect, the dust of a thousand things, dryer lint floating in the air, and two unfortunate toilet explosions that drained through the garage to the street.

I had given up on it, sadly, and was getting ready to list it on Freecycle for a new loving owner to come save it. But when I sat with the rug to start writing a description for the free site, I fell in love with it again. I decided to get it cleaned – something I really don’t often do. It was the perfect opportunity to try out COIT Services, a name that I have known forever because how can you miss it living in Los Angeles? But I had never hired them for a cleaning service.

COIT picks up area rugs for cleaning at their facility in Monrovia. The workers who picked up the rug came early on a Saturday morning, right when they said they would come. I was surprised – I was still in my jammies! I asked them to discard the nasty rug underlay that didn’t really help keep the rug in place anymore and just collected more dirt. They promised to have the rug back soon, and later that day a rep called to tell me the date it would arrive.

On the appointed day a different worker, let’s called him Randy because that is his name, arrived. I had prepared for the rug’s delivery by moving all the furniture out of the way with my husband that morning. The kids were home when Randy came so they were excited to watch the big rollout. We could tell Randy’s done this a million times because he basically flicked this enormous rug out with one hand, it seemed, and smoothed it out expertly. He said that every time he does this, kids and dogs enjoy frolicking over the newly cleaned rug. Mine were no exception.

Randy helped me put all the furniture back in place. The rug looks great – almost like new, no stains, no dust, just colorful and lovely, like it used to be. It’s tying the decor of the room together once again, new colors and all. Now I feel like I need to upgrade my furniture – or at least get it cleaned – to match.

COIT’s price for area rug cleaning depends on the type of rug, but ranges from $2.50 – $4.50 per square foot, plus a $25 service fee that covers gas and proper disposal of wastewater. They are currently running a 40% off special!

I received a complimentary rug cleaning to facilitate this feature.