Gallery of Canvas Rugs on YouTube Video

Every experience is an opportunity to do a job better. One of my clients, a local interior design company, called to say one of the canvas rugs we had designed together had been damaged. After retrieving the product I took it back to the workshop to see what had happened. Although thorough instructions are always supplied to both the design company and to their clients, the end users, sometimes it all comes down to a simple act of a house cleaner who cleans the floors but does not understand the care of the product. The damage was not severe and after ironing out the kinks and applying a few coats more of varnish the rug looked good as new.

 Why am I sharing this? It only made me want to make not only a better product but a better way to communicate to our clients, and to their housekeepers, the persons who take care of the rugs! So I thought what better way then to make a small film clip! Easy to watch, takes a minute and I can do it in Spanish and in English. Now I am really excited and made my first video, a gallery of hand painted canvas rugs on You Tube video. Check it out and leave a comment there. Later, I will post an Installation video when its completed.

 I recently made a presentation to an interior design company with everyone involved who designs, sells, and installs the canvas rugs. Once they understood how to care for a canvas rug, their enthusiasm for using this home decor medium exploded. The concept of hand painting a rug is novel and interesting, especially here in Costa Rica. Interior decorators and designers are excited to have this additional tool at their disposal when it comes to putting a room together. They are artists in their own right and it is my privilege to work with them, helping to express their creative ideas and concepts utilizing hand painted canvas rugs.

 

 I love before and after pictures. When an interior designer has a vision they use Laurel’s Originals hand painted canvas rugs as just one component. A rug is the anchor; it brings many elements of design together, the curtains, the wall color, the upholstery.

All of these parts are combined to create a unified ambience.

 Often, a designer is asked to come in to pull a room together that has already been furnished. This was the objective in Project 1, where we show a room with a multicolored couch and the two armchairs with a different design. We took the colors from each and created the striped rug shown to pull the various elements together.

 Meanwhile the two 2 meter x 3 meter rugs for Project 2 are finished and ready for packaging and shipping. A brilliant example of less is more; the bold stripes of blues, browns and beige are offset with the weave design in the center. I love the opportunity to work with different combinations of colors. For the designer, the colors are unifying an idea for their project. For me, it’s a unique piece of work that uses color combinations I wouldn’t have tried before. This design is very light and airy, with crisp clean colors.

 One of these canvas rugs is to be placed under a dining table and the other is for the living area. I am so looking forward to seeing these rugs placed in their new home. There are many other features of the room that I don’t know about until the designer sends me a photo of the completed project. For me the art is not complete until I see the finished room in its entirety.

 As you can see from this photo, one of these large rugs is taking up my dining and living room! Plans are in the works to expand the workshop to accommodate making more than one of these larger rugs at a time!

 

Ok, I am up for a good challenge and today presented one.

 My dear friends who own a hotel in the same town are big fans of my canvas rugs. They are working out the design for floor décor in the living room of their beautiful home. The challengers are my friends’ Sharpei and Newfoundland dogs. The “Newfi” loves the pool and refreshes himself on a frequent basis; they both lay to rest on the canvas rugs in the hallway separating the dining area and sitting rooms.

 Teri has seen first hand the endurance of the interior design canvas floor treatment in her hotel. The hotel lobby reflects the same Mexican motif as her home; she recognizes how well the canvas rug stands up to the constant traffic as guests move through the lobby.

 Teri also chose one of our hand-painted canvas rugs designs for her kitchen, one of my favorites, the octagonal Mexican tile for placement under one of her dining tables. As you can see, her Mexican themed décor and ambience welcomes this particular design.

 As we were measuring the hallway for the new canvas rug addition to the home, Teri’s husband challenged, “…the rugs won’t stand up to these dogs.” He agreed they would last better than any other rug, but I have taken up the challenge and will take pictures the day of installation and come back to determine the actual wear and tear; for how many months should we make the challenge, six months, a year?

 And what do we win? We at Laurel’s Originals will have another satisfied customer whose life will have been made a little easier using a canvas rug floor treatment. Be it from people and/or doggie foot traffic for home or hotel.

The days have been glorious here in Costa Rica. With weather patterns changing around the world, we seem to get the best of it with a drier rainy season. This has been very helpful with the preparation of canvas for the large area rugs we have on order. The first step to making a canvas rug is to shrink the canvas. As my workshop continues to evolve along with the business, we still use the front lawn to lay out wet canvas under the sun so it can shrink.

 We have become very adept in the use of tubes to roll and unroll the canvas rugs so we can maneuver them for sewing and painting. It’s impossible to paint the center of a 7 foot x 10 foot rug when it’s all laid out! We are proud to introduce our new (old) industrial sewing machine. This goes into the making of an even better product. We can now prime the material before sewing to preshrink just a little more, and the edges warp less with a seal to keep the material bound tight.

 All this seems a little technical; I guess it may fascinate me more than you. However, when you are passionate about canvas rugs all aspects of making them a better product is exciting! I have one in my dining room laid out for the varnish to set! My next plan is to redesign the workshop to handle several products at once.

 

 

Most new homes in Costa Rica are built with tile floors and the canvas rugs can make the rooms more intimate, breaking up the space.

 Large spacious beach homes tend to ramble on with light colored tiles and furniture spaced in groups with no boundaries to pull it together. A canvas rug can bring the elements together to mark off the space and make a sitting area in a large room that may incorporate a dining area and a living room area all in one room, more defined.

 Clients also mention they don’t like the feel of tile on their feet. Remember, we are talking beach homes, so yes, barefoot is an option. Also think sand, the inevitable tracking in of the sand, the sweeping of sand, the seeping of sand into a normal rug and the ease with which sand can be swept and mopped on a canvas rug.

 At this time we are working on two canvas rugs for one such home. Originally the designer requested one striped rug and we decided on a matching striped border with a weave in the center for the second rug in the dining area. After thinking about the designs she decided to make two rugs with the center weave and striped borders.

 The base coat is very white and will have a beige weave. She said, I like to make the rooms light and airy. The rugs are very large, 7’ x 10’ so this design will pull the different areas together yet not overtake the room.

 The colors are crisp and fresh and I look forward to seeing the end product! No matter how much we work on the design the actual finished product always blows us away!