Ruggable Rugs anyone?

[dogmom]

It looks like my 13 week Lab puppy is housebroken, Yeah! I’ve been wanting to get rid of my great-grandmothers oversized, threadbare oriental rug in my living room, but between kids, puppies, old basset hounds with issues, it was never a good time. I’m thrilled to get a new rug. I’ve been looking at ruggables, but I’m unsure if they are a good idea. I’m going to get a larger one, probably 9x12. I don’t think it will fit in my washer, but I could always take it to a laundromat once or twice a year if I need to. Just wondering if anyone has them and how they hold up. The other options is to get a regular one online or my Homegoods has some nice ones.

[mmsmom]

If you’re going to be taking it somewhere to launder anyway then I wouldn’t limit yourself to machine washable. I either have rugs cleaned in house with ChemDrynor similar that is ok for area rugs or have them cleaned at a rug place which usually offer free pick up and delivery. I see the benefit in the smaller ones you can wash at home but I think the convenience is lost on bigger sizes.

[twowhat?]

We recently replaced our thick crate & barrel shag rug with a 9x12 star wars ruggable. Things we love: it looks so cool. It's so easy to clean. Our dog sat down and Hershey Highway'ed it, and the spot wiped right up with a wet paper towel (I sprayed with an enzyme cleaner as well). Muddy paw prints - a wet microfiber cloth scrubbed them right out. Spills don't seem to soak in as long as you address it immediately - they wipe right up. It's so easy to spot clean that I haven't had the opportunity to launder it yet. We do have a large capacity front loader, so I will see whether I'm able to get it to fit (and if not, I will wash it at the local laundromat in their extra large capacity machines). It's so easy to vacuum, with no carpet fibers to trap anything at all, so I would imagine great for allergies. Dog fur sits on top and doesn't disappear into it.

Things that we don't really love about it: It's thin. The 9x12 size does NOT have the option of getting the premium pad, so it's gonna be thin and hard to sit on. You do feel like you're walking on top of a layer of fabric stuck to a layer of velcro. We do a layered rug look so we have a thick faux fur quad rug from Costco laid on top for sitting comfort and it looks good layered and adds a bit of softness for sinking bare feet into. I'm not certain how well the binding will hold up - it doesn't look super tightly wrapped, and my rug came with one tiny bit of a loose yarn, but so far it has held up with no issues. I have heard of people who have a hard time vacuuming it - I think it's crucial to have a vacuum cleaner that has multiple suction power modes because it takes much less suction to clean up this rug. I have a Dyson cordless V10 and it's perfect on Low. The velcro-ish pad I feel is undersized. It is meant to be smaller than the top layer so that you can lay the rug on it without the pad showing but I think they give you TOO much wiggle room. Because of that, we had to strategically position the pad so that the top layer would overlap the pad the LEAST amount on the 2 highest-traffic sides of the rug (hope that makes sense, basically we wanted the edges of the highest-traffic sides of the rug to be velcro'ed to the pad as close to those edges as possible to keep them flat. The other 2 sides are positioned in low-traffic areas or under furniture so that there's no risk of them getting flipped up even though several inches of those edges aren't stuck to the velcro pad). I ordered samples to be sure colors worked and my sample of our blue star wars toile rug was a slightly lighter blue than the actual rug we received. I know these are basically printed designs so printer color lots may vary slightly. I am also finding that some of the blue dye rubs off. It hasn't been a problem, but just noting that it leaves a blue tint on the paper towels we use to clean up messes. So expect the rug to maybe fade slightly with wear and washes. The 9x12 rug is difficult to lay and takes a lot of tries and retries. Lay the pad first, have the rug rolled up (we used more of a "folded up" approach, that way we could make sure we kept all the edges completely straight), and then unroll/unfold onto the pad. The first couple unrolls/unfolds didn't end up sitting exactly where we wanted so we had to remove and retry but eventually we got it. DD1 helped me and between the two of us we got it done. Smooth it out as you unroll/unfold to prevent wrinkles. It's polyester, and it feels polyester. There's no "natural material" feel with this rug.

We also have a Ruggable runner in the laundry room. All the same benefits, but it's in a high traffic area and even with the non-slip pad it doesn't quite stay put on the tile floor. I have to reposition it often. Our 9x12 Ruggable in the living room sits on engineered hardwood and it doesn't shift (but it's also much bigger and anchored by furniture).

Overall we're happy, particularly about the way the rug looks and the ease of cleaning! And since those were our 2 most important criteria, Ruggable has been great for us.