After many years of hearing from customers who have hesitated to put down a handknotted rug in their kitchens or bathrooms -- and from my own personal experience -- I can report wholeheartedly that you will find that a handmade wool rug is the most practical, and beautiful, answer for kitchens and baths.

Practicality: Obviously, the kitchen floors of those of us who actually cook are the recipients of daily spills and droppings, as well as lots of traffic. A high-end wool rug is the most practical choice because of the density of the wool pile and also because of the quality of the wool. Sphaghetti sauce? Wine? Dogs? Take a rag or dishcloth with soapy water, bend down and clean it up. Voila! I have yet to encounter a spill that doesn't come right out with soapy water (which I follow up with clean water if it's a largish spill).

In bathrooms where there is shower water going on to the floor on a daily basis, a gorgeous wool rug is also a highly practical choice. Handmade rugs, like anything, should be allowed to dry in between wettings, so if you step out onto the rug from your shower or bath, we recommend using a bath mat over the rug, then hanging the bath mat up to dry.

More fun considerations: There's nothing that brings a room alive more than a wonderful rug on the floor. Think about it: a $39 rug from Home Depot, a thin hooked or tufted rug from Crate and Barrel...or a dense, beautiful and interesting rug that has the character and beauty of a wonderful handknotted rug? Even the more generic kitchen or bathroom can come alive with a great handknotted rug on the floor!

I've had people come in to my store just to tell me, "I can't believe it. That rug in my kitchen has been so great. The spills just sit on the surface and it's easy to clean up -- and I get to look at it sparkle in my kitchen every day!"

My father had a floor-covering business. When I was little he took me with him sometimes and I saw him lay linoleum, often with fancy inlays. I remember a rooster he carved out of linoleum and laid into the main material of a kitchen floor.

He stocked some tufted wool rugs as time went on.

When he retired at a youngish age, my mother decided she’d become an oriental rug dealer. She was a wiz. It was a time when many people remembered growing up with oriental rugs, but then they had gone out of fashion with the onset of wall-to-wall carpeting in many homes. Some customers remarked to me that they remember small oriental rugs being put in the dog’s bed!

My mother took me with her to San Francisco and New York from time to time to visit her sources for rugs. Exposure to the rugs combined with her enthusiasm and love of the rugs she brought into her shop were contagious. One day I saw a Persian Afshar in her store, which I fell in love with and purchased from her on a lay-away plan (at a discount, if I remember!) I have it next to me to this day and continue to treasure that rug.

My mother acquired many rugs of her own, which have been passed down to my brothers and me: a very fine silk and wool Persian (Iranian) Nain, some quirky, dense “iron rugs,” another name for Persian Bidjars, Turkish rugs from the ‘70s and ‘80s that were made by rug makers bringing back handspun, vegetal dye rugs as part of the “rug renaissance” that was taking place.

I consider myself to be very lucky to have been exposed to the beauty and character of wonderful handmade rugs and to have been part of this amazing Renaissance. Hand-knotted rugs, now more than ever, are to be treasured, as fewer and fewer people are involved in the skilled and labor-intensive craft of rug-weaving. (See our related article on “Current Trends in the Rug-Making World”).