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Flooring Persian carpets: myths and magic By Hadani Ditmars Persian carpets have always intrigued me – their allure being part aesthetic, part tactile and part, well … mystical. We all know about the myth of the flying carpet – actually born of Sufi dervish tales of levitation during prayer. There is also a well-established connection between the concept of paradise and the garden-themed floral design of many Persian rugs. There is even a more esoteric theory that the centre of a carpet’s design represents the axis of the world. Whatever their spiritual value, the beauty of carpets remained a constant throughout my travels in the Middle East and Central Asia. As I write this at my desk in Far Western Kitsilano, a red and black Uzbek antique carpet I picked up in Bukhara peeks out at me with a near Eastern gaze – simultaneously exotic and cozy. I purchased it at the former summer palace of the last sultan of Bukhara. When the Russians invaded in 1920, he fled, abandoning his 400-strong harem. Being pragmatic, as well as beautiful, the women opened a bazaar on the old palace grounds, which remains to this day, having weathered the excesses of both communism and post-Soviet corruption. The story of my carpet is but one of many. To my mind, all Persian carpets have stories, and “reading” them is just a question of seeing and understanding their patterns in the right way – like cracking a secret code. A chat with Vancouver carpet dealer Peter Tolliday helped me �� understand the medium, if not the message. After 30 years in the business, the South Granville dealer has few illusions. “There’s so much misinformation out there, so many myths,” he says. The first step for the novice buyer, he suggests, is to go to a reputable dealer. “People often come to me and say’, ‘Look at this 200-year-old rug we picked up in Istanbul for only $300.’ I’ll look at it and see that it’s actually only 60 years old and you could buy it for half the price in Vancouver.” Tolliday is also skeptical about the inherent narrative quality of rugs. While some are pictorial or figurative – such as traditional folkloric Persian rugs or the Baluchi tribal rugs from the ’70s that depicted scenes from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, most are simply decorative, often floral and mainly nonrepresentational. There are no hard and fast rules about buying carpets, he says, but in general it’s important to look at the quality of the colour and of the wool. “Good” colour usually means pure vegetable dye – more luminescent than chemical dye – and it’s best to avoid hard or dull A true antique carpet will have strong colours from vegetable dyes, and quality wool, with visible hand-tied knots on the back. A modern, machine-made carpet will have a flat surface on the back. wool – but Tolliday emphasizes there are exceptions to every rule. It’s also a question of personal taste. While traditionally in Iran, carpets are sold based on knot count – the more to the square inch the better – in the West there is a different sensibility. Some buyers, he suggests, may find the new looking, fine weave carpet “fussy and boring” and might prefer something antique with a looser weave. Take the popularity of the flat weave kilms in the West for instance, traditionally used for servants quarters in Iran. Antique carpets (you can tell if they’re handmade by checking the back of the rug for knots, whereas a machine-made carpet often has a flat surface on the back) are generally a better investment, but it depends on their condition. Ultimately, Tolliday advises that buying a carpet is a fine balance between aesthetics, quality and price. But myself, I’m still looking for a carpet with soul. While levitation would be nifty, I’d be satisfied with a fine weave of stories. � Hadani Ditmars, a journalist, and author of the best seller Dancing in the No Fly Zone: a Woman’s Journey Through Iraq, is working on a play set in a carpet shop. Recommended Reading: Oriental Carpets, a Complete Guide by Murray Eiland Designs can be merely floral and decorative, or figurative expressions of Persian folklore.
By Frank O’Brien If you are going with hardwood flooring for your home makeover, go with true hardwood or high-quality engineered hardwood because it is an investment that will pay off in time, experts contend. In fact, a forecasting survey of hundreds of real estate agents, taken last year, revealed a belief that, while hardwood floors add to the value of a home, wood laminates may become passé. The intense demand for hardwood has deepened the selection of floor choices, with exotic materials, most notably Brazilian and Asian hardwoods, now competing with North American standards like oak and cherry. Some purists are even purchasing recycled first-growth hardwood, sourced from the demolition of factories, barns and other old buildings. Companies such as family-owned Wideplank Hardwood Ltd. of Chilliwack can source such antique wood, or will cut and “age” hardwood for an antique effect. David Laniado, president of Nucasa Milling Company (formerly The Finishing Touch), explained that “handscraped” floors are now a very hot trend in higher-end renovations. These are either hardwood or engineered wood floors that are rubbed with chains and otherwise “beat up” to achieve a heritage, lived-on look. Nucasa has retail outlets across Greater Vancouver and a 30-person production centre in Port Coquitlam that makes both hardwood and engineered hardwood flooring. Photos: Nucasa Milling Company Honest hardwood Hardwood floors a blue chip investment TOP: Handscraped hardwood, shown in hickory, is “aged” to make it look antique and ease worries about marking the floor in a house with kids and dogs. ABOVE: Angle-cut, quarter-sawn oak is exposes a richer grain than conventional saw cuts. Like others in the business, Laniado notes that there is no difference visually between hardwood and engineered hardwood and, in fact, the engineered wood offers some distinct advantages. First of all, it is more environmentally friendly. “From the same amount of wood you can make six times as much engineered wood as real hardwood,” Laniado explained. “It is a greener product.” Engineered hardwood is made of LEFT: Yellow birch is among the fresh flooring options, which now come from around the world. several layers of wood stacked and glued together under pressure, and capped with a quarter-inch or so of the hardwood species. Engineered wood flooring is less likely to be affected by <strong>change</strong>s in humidity than solid wood and can be installed above, on or below ground level, which has made it popular in basement renovations. It must be glued down, but can be installed directly to concrete. Quality engineered wood with thicker top layers can be sanded and cared for just like hardwood. Radiant heat Engineered floors are also a better fit for in-floor radiant heating, also a popular ��
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