Kitchen Area Rugs: 3 Rugs in One Kitchen

Happy end of February!   Spring is not in the air in Colorado.  Freezing fog and the smell of marijuana growers is in the air.  I’m not ready to deal with our muddy, nasty yard that’s lurking under a nice cover of ice and snow right now.  Our yard is a problem – and I get a cosy feeling when it snows and it covers the problem.  It’s a similar feeling to being able to put on an enormous sweater and not worry about the way you fit into your jeans.  A fresh blanket of snow is the equivalent of an enormous sweater on a winter bod.

Last week I had a photo shoot for a small kitchen project.  For almost all of my photo shoots I like to borrow rugs from Shaver-Ramsey, a fine and custom rug store that’s been in Denver since the mid-1970’s.  I borrowed three runners from them in three different color ways and I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what different color rugs do to a white kitchen!  I took these photos while we were getting ready for the real photographer.

This first rug is a Kashkuli Gabbeh woven by tribal women in South West Iran.

Liz Vehko, from Shaver-Ramsey, told me that Gabbeh’s are free form weavings that often depict landscapes.  You can find people, animals, floral/plant forms, mountains and sunsets in the designs.  The colors come from all-natural plant dyes that gives the rug a rich look showing many shades of one color.  The weavers are artists – they do not work from any sort of graph.  Gabbehs have been woven for over 100 years and have always had this very modern sensibility to them.  Interesting, right?  Let’s see what it does for this little white kitchen!

This Oushak is also from Iran and the design is based off of antique rugs.  This rug and the next rug have both been sheared to look like an antique rug, but the colors they use are intended for today’s homes.

When I checked this rug out from the store, I thought it was too gray for the space, but it felt just right in the room.

I’ll post professional photos of the kitchen once I get them back.  I loved seeing how different each rug made the room look – I think it’s good to think about for your own home and, if you can afford to, work with a rug dealer to see a few different rugs in your space before you purchase.  Do you have a favorite of these?