One of my grand-nieces collects rare oriental rugs/mats, beautiful objects, about the size of a bed-cover.

She's run out of wall-display space and never but never puts them on her polished floors to - horrors - walk on them.

When I said "Can't you buy non-reflecting clear wear-resistant protective envelopes that let you walk on them harmlessly?", she said she hadn't seen them. and led me to the door, stoney-faced.

I'd offended by my "I know a better way" act.

Brought back home, I sent PeterSealy's rayfobot out to do a search on "rug protection" for me.

More seriously, I'm finding that a five-minute 'Bakery search is, for invention ideas, better/faster than ten minutes in Google, so rich now are the 'Bakery's resources.
-- rayfo, Jun 26 2001

Some Carpet Protectors http://www.marsdenviro.co.uk/floor.html
Whether they will pass muster with your niece is another question. [petersealybot, Jun 26 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Rayfo's wall-storage unit http://www.halfbake...m/idea/Wall-storage
[snarfyguy, Jun 26 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Wear a hat. Oh, *that* kind of rug...

Persian carpets are designed to be walked on, and you hardly need to "save" them, even antique ones. And you can certainly get plastic rug envelopes or covers if you are so inclined.
-- petersealybot, Jun 26 2001


I think rayfo could not expect to persuade a collector of rare rugs that they were made to be walked on. The rug protectors I've seen are rather dully semi-transparent, and certainly don't show the rug to its advantage. Maybe any sort of plastic cover that's walked on will quickly become scratched and dull, I don't know. Maybe her best option is to layer them on her walls?
-- Dog Ed, Jun 26 2001


rayfo - adapt your own idea (see link) so that the carpets are mounted on a revolving wall unit that takes up the entire wall. The rugs can then be viewed serially as the unit is rotated.

There's also the ceiling...
-- snarfyguy, Jun 26 2001


What UnaBubba is describing would be a called an armoured glass "false floor".
-- Aristotle, Jun 27 2001


My niece now tells me we're all several fringes short of a carpet.

She says, "Traditional traders with a stock of hundreds of costly and cheaper carpets, layer them all over the show-room floor with the cheap ones on top as protection and camouflage; no plastic needed.

"Bargain-hunters are left to discover bargains by burrowing in the layers.

"Up-market traders and top collectors display using revolving racks and air-conditioning and stuff; no cheap and nasty plastic envelopes. Seeya."

I swallowed an intended joke about flying carpets, and put the phone back.

My rayfobot was still snuffliig round the floor looking for scraps of data. I switched it off.
-- rayfo, Jun 27 2001


UnaBubba: Your second annotation explained why a subsequent search for a glass false floor did not give any appropriate results. This is a same as this would have been my best guess to.

rayfo: With plastic covers you would probably have an acidic problem. Maybe the solution is to recommend your grand-niece build a "rug-display tower" extension to her house to give her increased wall space.
-- Aristotle, Jun 27 2001


Floor display will only open up a very limited new area for carpets. Towers are cool, but expensive and difficult to get permits for. A cheaper, longer-term solution would be maximize wall surface area by cutting the house up into a lunatic maze-like space. Some sort of "bottomless, topless box-modules" could be used.

Or the grand-niece could be convinced to begin collecting rare oriental facecloths and dish towels.
-- Monkfish, Jun 27 2001


A) Never diss rayfro, even if you're a Niece with "rare" rugs
B) If these "rare" rugs are so scarce, how come there's so many of them? I've seen thousands...
-- thumbwax, Mar 29 2002


To the petersealey automaton: People tend not to display their hair on the walls or want to walk on them.
-- kaz, Mar 29 2002


I had a friend who once had a similar problem. She solved it by tacking quite a few of the rugs to the ceiling in several rooms, once tack in each corner and one in the middle of the rug, causing four material 'bubbles' for each carpet. Very neat looking.
-- Pseudonym #3, Mar 30 2002


nooooooooo nooooo no no! these are "rare" rugs and you wanna put tacks through them! :o
-- kaz, Mar 30 2002


has anyone mentioned those big book like things that display posters in shops? they take up some space but anything for these rugs is going to need space. I have a quilt that my friend made me, much too nice for anywhere but on the wall.
-- po, Mar 30 2002


If the rug is thick enough not to be torn, the tacks don't hurt it. If you're afraid of ripping it, then use whatever method you used to hang it on the wall, since that didn't rip it.
-- Pseudonym #3, Mar 30 2002


Good point, however I don't give a damn about the rugs as I have none to display on my wall. Just my Jordan Grand Prix flag.
-- kaz, Mar 31 2002


The tacks themselves won't hurt the rug, but the weight will warp the backing. Those rugs with the 'material bubbles' will probably be permanently non-flat now...
-- StarChaser, Mar 31 2002


TIL there used to be some kind of bots here.
-- notexactly, Dec 07 2019



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