Decorum Rugs & Antiques is a small, family business based in Southeastern Michigan, started in 2015. We are an online store and offer vintage and antique rugs that are made by tribal, nomadic weavers, village weavers, and weaving loom centers set up in cities that all all hand-made textiles of pile and/ or flat weave construction. We also do minor to difficult repairs and insure that all rugs are cleaned and secured at the sides and fringes prior to sale and shipping to our customers. For customers located in nearby communities, you can set up an appointment to see our rugs and furnishings in person, or to schedule a personal shopping consultation at no cost to you.
Background: Decorum was founded by a mother and daughter team, Sandra and Rachel . During Sandra’s college years, Sandra accompanied her family to Iran when her father accepted a 1-year, teaching Fulbright Grant at Teheran University. Sandra attended the University of Teheran, taking graduate courses in Statistics, Math, and Hemingway towards her Bachelor degree at Colby College. She taught at a Persian, Armenian kindergarten where she learned to speak decent Farsi and was smitten with a huge appreciation of everything Persian. She traveled all over Northwest and Southwest Iran with some time spent in the Caspian sea, going to many of the Bazaars, and going to the ski slope area with family and friends.. Since then she has been an avid collector of hand-made rugs and turned her passion in to a business with the help of her daughter Rachel. Rachel is n longer a business partner and has focused her interests and energies on her 2 year old, her family, and demanding job. She still maintains her passion for these beautiful hand-made rugs though. My Partner in business is now my Princeton, PhD, Classics Professor husband. We may be adding Ancient coins and Maps to the site. Further, turning this into a family affair, my college graduate son, Chris provides IT, Web, Inventory, and accounting support. to the team.
Raison D’etre: While furnishing their own homes, and collecting rugs for many years, Sandra began to educate herself on rugs…learning how to do repairs,joined forums and spent hours reading books, developing a library of references, going to auctions, and extensive online research. Sandra and Rachel realized there was not a marketplace for local, everyday buyers to make an informed purchase at an affordable price. Often consumers would find an affordable rug at an estate sale or flea market, but there was very little or no information about it available, and so, the consumer had no idea of the value or authenticity. The idea of buying an authentic Persian, oriental, or tribal rugs as an uninformed consumer is a gamble – you can hit the jackpot, or, most likely, overpay, or pay for a rug that turns out to be something other than what you thought.
The alternative is to purchase from an auction, a retail dealer, or a private individual. In any of these cases there is a risk that you may pay more than your rug is worth. Often times customers do not understand that a new rug purchased for a retail price is usually worth for half the price paid at resale of your item. All rugs need to be authenticated for age, design, structure and weave, origin, quality of materials used (wool, silk, cotton, metallic, hemp), evidence of repair, condition, number of repairs, and in some cases dying touch ups….its all CAVEAT EMPTOR….so education is very important and we try to do that with our rugs.
Decorum Rugs & Antiques is here to try to fill the gaps between the flea market, estate sales purchases, auctions, and the retailer. We provide our customers with authentic handmade rugs at affordable prices while educating you about your purchase. Each rug will come with a RUG DNA – a provenance that tells you the region, age, retail value, and additional details of your purchase so that you know what you are buying. We keep the overall purchase as low as possible, offering free shipping on most rugs, but may have additional shipping costs for rugs that are very heavy (>75 lbs) or a price based on your location and speed of delivery. This allows us to sell each rug at a base cost without including the maximum shipping charge. As our customer you will pay the lowest price for the rug based on your location.
All of our rugs are unique, one-of-a-kind, hand-knotted or flat weave, works of art with different levels of wear and condition. Some are in near pristine, full pile condition, Other antique pieces have some overall wear, but still maintain their collectible status. These rugs have origins that range from Turkey, Iran (Persian), Azerbaijan, Persian Caucasus, the Russian Caucasus, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China, and other rug weaving areas in the Mideast and Orient.. We only sell hand-knotted or hand-woven rugs. We do not sell machine-made rugs. Learn more about the difference between machine and hand-made rugs and why it is important here.
Each rug we sell has been researched and is listed with details about its quality (KPSI, warp, weft, age, pile), origin (where it was made) and condition. We have done our best to provide you with the most accurate information, but keep in mind that sometimes even the experts disagree. Please inspect photos closely before ordering to see the condition of each piece. Some of the rugs are Antique pieces (greater 100 years) and have considerable wear.
We hope to offer antique and vintage furniture and other collectibles (maps, coins) in the future.
As always, we are happy to answer any questions you have about individual pieces.
With Warmest Regards,
Sandra and Decorum Team