Bob's Bloggers
A community of bloggers who live and die to DIY
cleaning
Brushing My Flokati: Shag Carpet Cleaning Tips
By Our Concrete Home on Oct 30, 2012
In our bedroom, we have a 8×10 foot Flokati rug I bought after our bathroom remodel to warm up the concrete floors. I had read great reviews about the style including that they are extremely durable and can last a lifetime with proper care.
I love how the rug looks and feels but was a little concerned how exactly to keep it clean. The instructions that came with it said to take it outside and shake it periodically to remove dust. I have also read you can wash them with mild wool soap in your washing machine.
Both sound like great options, but our rug is way to big to stuff in our washing machine and I can only manage to take the rug outside once or twice a year tops. I tried vacuuming but stupidly realized that the rug fiber get stuck in the rotating pieces. Duh. So I was really at a loss of what to do besides shaking it out.
Recently I was watching the High/Low Project on HGTV and Sabrina Soto gave a quick tip about cleaning Flokati rugs. She said to use a plastic rake to clean off debris and keep the rug fluffy.
So on a recent Target trip, I came across toy rakes in the summer clearance section.
At a $1 each, I thought these would be perfect to try out on the rug because of the spokes were really wide apart.
To start, I did a light vacuum with the suction head attachment to pick up any big debris particles.
Brushing the rug was a super simple process. Just brush with the fibers across the length of the rug. Our rug is under our bed so I just worked from the mattress out.
I used the larger rake for most of the rug and the smaller one around the bed and in the corners. I found that the rake picked up more of the debris than the vacuum did.
You will find that some of the wool will get caught in the rake. This is absolutely normal, and is not harmful to your Flokati Rug. Once I was done brushing, I went back and sucked up all the debris with my vacuum.
It may be overkill, but after I brushed the rug I went back a second time with the vacuum to pick up in straggling fluffs. The second vacuuming also fluffed the rug up a little more as well.
Of course by now, the cats wanted to know what the %^&* I was doing. They hate that vacuum.
Here’s the final result one fluffy and clean Flokati rug. The full rug brushing took about 20 minutes plus I got a nice arm workout. I am excited to see how long the fluffy look lasts before it needs another brushing. I’ll write an update when I find out.
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