Southwestern rugs are extremely versatile and can serve numerous purposes in your home. Whether you are decorating your living room, family room, bedroom, kitchen, hallway or patio, there’s a Southwestern rug that is right for you. Unlike wall-to-wall carpet, which is normally best kept rather neutral, Southwestern rugs can bring colorful patterns and designs into your room without overwhelming it. Plus, unlike carpeting, Southwestern rugs can be changed with the seasons – or your mood – and are yours to keep should you move.

If you are lucky enough to have wooden floors in your home, Southwestern rugs are the perfect compliment. With a little care your wooden floors will last forever. They don’t collect allergens the way carpet does, are easy to clean and provide a perfect background for a beautiful Southwestern rug. But even if you have wall-to-wall carpeting you can still use Southwestern rugs. Simply place them in high-traffic areas to protect the carpet or use Southwestern rugs to tie a seating area together. Many people put Southwestern rugs on their walls to create an interesting display!

The Importance of Using a Quality Rug Pad

Experts in the home décor industry all agree that every Southwestern area rug requires a good-quality rug pad underneath it. Not only does this promote safety in your home by preventing the rug from slipping, it also increases the life of your Southwestern rug and makes it much easier to regularly vacuum. Never use tape or adhesive to anchor a Southwestern rug to your floor or carpeting. This can easily damage both the floor and rug. 

The Persian Dream rug pads we sell at Rugs Specials - RugDepot come with a 10-year warranty. They are guaranteed not to mar, stain or discolor the floor and to hold your Southwestern rug securely in place. They come in a variety of sizes and are reversible for use on either bare floors or carpeting. Also, most Southwestern rugs manufacturers require that their product be placed on top of a quality rug pad in order to validate their warranty against defects in workmanship.

Remember, every Southwestern rug needs a pad. Click here to see the high-quality, 10-year Persian Dream rug pads available from Rugs Specials - RugDepot.

Useful Information About Southwestern Rugs

The best-known native textile art in North America is the weaving of Navajo Indian blankets and rugs. The more generic term “Southwestern rugs” is used to identify designs based upon Navajo artists, but includes the Pueblos, Tlingit and other tribes of the area who also created incredibly beautiful works of woven art. Southwestern rugs are made in a style that was traditional in Mexico and the southwest United States long before the arrival of Europeans. The weaver would kneel before a vertical wooden-frame loom and use a shuttle to weave colored threads together into large-scale geometric designs. Originally Southwestern rugs were made of hand-spun cotton thread, but after the Spanish brought domestic sheep to the region the artisans primarily switched to wool. 

There is a timeless beauty to Navajo designs. Most Southwestern rugs are true masterworks that transcend time and space. The ancient tradition is that Navajo people learned to weave their Southwestern rugs from Spider Woman and that the first loom was of sky and earth cords, with weaving tools of sunlight, lightning, white shell, and crystal. 

For more than a century, the products of Navajo looms were probably identical to those of the Pueblos. But by the end of the 1700s Navajo weaving began its divergence. Pueblo weavers remained conservative, Navajo weavers learned that wefts did not need to be passed through all the warps each time. They discovered that by stopping at whatever point they wished they could create patterning other than horizontal bands. This is one feature of Navajo-inspired Southwestern rugs that make them unique. By 1800, weavers were using this technique to create terraced lines and discrete design elements. Navajo weavers also demonstrated more willingness to use color than their Pueblo counterparts.

By the 1880s, trading posts were well established on the Navajo Reservation, and traders encouraged weaving of Southwestern rugs using more muted colors. They thought, wrongly, that more conservative designs would appeal to the non-Indian market. This led to a further divergence in styles and by 1920, many Southwestern rugs became known by the name of the trading post for which they were woven.

Today almost all of the nineteenth and twentieth-century styles of Southwestern rugs are still woven in a variety of shapes, sizes and color combinations. And exciting new styles of Southwestern rugs continue to appear yearly.

Southwestern Rugs at Rugs Specials - RugDepot

Remember, there is no room in your home that will not benefit from the addition of a beautiful, new Southwestern area rug. And the best place to shop for Southwestern rugs is the nation’s leading source for area rugs, Rugs Specials - RugDepot. Explore our huge inventory and incredible prices by visiting our online showroom at www.rugdepot.com.