Custom designing an Oriental rug for a client is always a very special experience. One of my favorite rugs that I designed was for clients in Lehigh Valley, PA called “Morning Spring.” The couple’s magnificent 10,000 sq. ft. house had just been finished and almost all of the rugs had been pre-selected from our enormous inventory of new and antique oriental rugs showcased in our Doylestown showroom and two huge warehouses. The clients’ professional interior design firm, with whom I had previously worked on several projects, carefully coordinated the paint colors, wallpapers, drapery and upholstery fabrics with each rug. Before one piece of furniture was placed, the builder had already expertly finished each room according to the designers’ exact specifications – down to the Brunschwig & Fils ¼ braided silk trim on the Old Weavers silk damask upholstered walls. Even the hardwood floor border designs and impressive double staircases were made to accommodate each rug and runner’s exact size and shape.
However, one area was not as easy. The daughter’s light filled bedroom suite was a master piece of architectural detailing with its foliage inspired moldings, bank of tall mirrored closets and recessed wall niches. It was a gorgeous space and the daughter had a very specific color scheme in mind which we both named “Morning Spring.” She wanted her rooms to feel like a bright airy morning in April when the daffodils and grape hyacinths are in bloom – two of her favorite colors. Unfortunately these were two colors, sunny yellow and periwinkle blue, that are very rarely if ever found in hand-woven pile rugs. After much discussion with the clients and their daughter’s willingness to live with a temporary Berber rug for over twelve months, I was commissioned to design three rugs to meet her expectations. If a rug can inspire the feelings of spring’s freshness, bright sunshine and colorful floral beauty, these rugs came as close as any I have ever seen. I worked with my wool dyers to create as bright of a white ivory as possible
for the background which I kept pretty open. I looked at hundreds of floral sketches before I drew my own delicate multi-toned yellow and periwinkle blue blossoms and dainty buds connected by neutral tertiary colored vines for a border, spandrel corners and scattered accent motifs in the field.
When the rugs were finally finished overseas by my expert weavers, shipped to the Philadelphia seaport, delivered to the client’s home still wrapped in burlap and then unrolled with much excitement in the daughter’s sunlit room with 13ft high ceilings, three walls with tall windows, gorgeous Austin Horn lace bedding and window treatments with the walls and ceilings classically faux painted the effect was nothing when less than stunningly beautiful!
No matter what the season is outside, inside this bedroom it is always “Morning Spring.”
Happy Rug Shopping!
