An Embarrassment of Riches

The floor covering of choice at Blackrock is Oriental rugs. Partially this is because the house pre-dates wall-to-wall carpeting by about a century, and partially because A.'s family lived in Saudi Arabia for a few years and accumulated a good stock of rugs there. In any case, every single room in the house has Oriental rugs covering the wood floors. I even contributed a couple several years ago.

Even the kids' rooms have Oriental rugs, because there are so many rugs in the house and some have been here for so long that they're in pretty bad condition. Which of course makes them perfect for kids' rooms, because you pretty much want anything in contact with small children to be disposable in some way.

Anyway.

Our new house has no Oriental rugs. But it does have laminate wood flooring everywhere. This makes for an unfortunate echo effect that makes me want to pull my hair out. Three screaming children in an echo-y house is no good. The first thing I determined to get into that house were rugs to absorb sound, and lots of 'em.

I knew there were a few rugs at Blackrock (like the aforementioned worn-out ones in the kids' rooms) that could be borrowed without affecting the overall collection at Blackrock. I was pretty sure there were some extras in the attic in Addy's room. So today I crawled into the very back of that attic and started pulling out Oriental rugs.

Do you know how heavy those sumbitches are? They're thick, woven 100% wool. They are heavy. I dragged out four before my back gave out. There are still at least four more in there. That's eight total Oriental rugs just shoved out of sight in the back of an attic. I think if I were to walk through the house and count them all up, there would be around 36 Oriental rugs of varying sizes.

Thirty-six. That's insane. Useful, though.