As any interior designer worth his or her salt will tell you, the floor is where you begin when you want to create the correct ambience in a room. Look down as you read this article and notice the floor. Here lies the fruit of much labour. The chances are that a great deal of thought, creativity, craftsmanship and time has gone in to producing your particular floor covering.
Lying there on its own underneath all the furniture, the floor may be forgotten. In places it may be hidden from view, and it may be walked upon throughout the day but over a period of weeks and months it will set the tone of a room. Rugs, carpets, tiles, vinyl, wood - they all leave their own lasting impressions. There are magic Persian carpets and there are sad, lacklustre carpets. There are clean, sleek and cheerful tiles and there are brittle, wobbly tiles. It's important to care about what covers your floor.
Depending on the covering - be it a rug or a tufted weave, a room can send out signals of warmth, coolness, elegance, chic, sturdiness or space. A crisp elegant shine on a tiled kitchen floor can create an impression of sophistication and cleanliness. A rust-coloured deep-pile carpet will possibly create an atmosphere of warmth and security in any sitting room. You enter an Aladdin's cave when you go into Pars Oriental Carpet Gallery on Dublin's Dame Street and see the rich, luxuriant selection of hand-made Persian carpets. There are also authentic hand-made carpets from Tibet, Nepal and China. The two owners, Jamshid Kamvar and Azad Shirazi are both passionate about their carpets. They opened the shop in 1989 and explain how different a hand-made carpet where "the pile is knotted on the weft of the rug" is to one that has been made by a machine. The feel underfoot of a Persian carpet is enough to convince any prospective buyer.
Pars Gallery stocks one of the largest collections of Persian carpets in Europe. With a 10-year guarantee on all carpets, including the first cleaning fee, each one can be exchanged at any time because, like all works of art, its value increases all the time. The gallery deals directly with Iranian craftsmen so their prices are kept relatively low, for example, a Persian rug measuring nine feet by six feet will cost around £600. Sourcing its range of carpets directly from Iran, their policy includes exchanging carpets of the same value at a later stage in order to suit new decor.
The showrooms at Kashan Carpets, based in Stillorgan Industrial Park, Co Dublin, is a paradise to anyone who likes to view carpets and think about a deep or knotted pile. The rooms measure 5,500 square feet. Every inch is devoted to carpets and floor coverings. Every hue, shape, type, style and design of carpet imaginable is here, ranging in price from £10 up to £8,000. This is a retail and whole-sale outlet.
Kashan Carpets is a family-run business. The company, which was founded by Dick Hance, has a manufacturing plant in Allahabad in north-east India, where many of the carpets are made. All are made of 100 per cent wool and a new range is produced every year. There are three main types, as Ralph Hance explains: the tufted type, the tougher knotted type and the flat-weave or dhurry (Indian cotton) type.
Individuals can have their own carpet design made specially. Each year the range changes. This year the colours that are in, says Ralph Hance, are rust and gold. A carpet for a nice-sized sitting room, measuring about eight foot by five foot, could cost anything from £150 upwards. "We've got something at every price level." Flanagan's on Deerpark Road in Mount Merrion opened 17 years ago. Here is a chance for people to view a fine range of carpets, not to mention fabrics, curtains and antique furniture as well as a selection of interior decorating services provided by Flanagan's. Brian Flanagan started his business in Buncrana, Co Donegal, 20 years ago. With his brother, Peter, the business has grown. Today it employs over 50 between Dublin, Letterkenny and Buncranna. The company has a range of eight different types of floor coverings - hardwood, maple, pitch pine, modern pitch pine, white oak, white oak three-ply, mahogany and Baltic pine. All of the coverings are sourced locally in Co Donegal, says Brian Flanagan.
T C Mathews Carpets has a number of outlets - Lucan Retail Park, Greenhills Road in Walkinstown, Dunleer, Co Louth, and Sir John Rogerson's Quay in Dublin. It supplies carpets, hardwood floor covering, "antico" tiles, vinyls and natural floor coverings. There are a number of carpet types here also, including Ulster Carpets, Brinton's Carpets, Navan Carpets and Curragh Carpets. The Carpet Showrooms in Lower Georges Street in Dun Laoghaire is run by the Jordan family. The company, which has been in business for the past 25 years, also has showrooms in Dundrum Shopping Centre. Its space in Dun Laoghaire opened 12 years ago. Today it's range of carpets come from all around the world, including Australia, Britain, Denmark and Belgium, as well as Ireland. The most popular carpet on sale at the moment, according to Nicola Jordan, is a natural rib grass which is selling at £15.99 per square yard. This is 100 per cent wool and comes in 10 different colours - "all the woody tones". Some people go for the bare, wood look in a room, using ash, beech, birch, oak, maple or mahogany, which are all available, to gain maximum effect. These floors can be sanded and refinished several times in order to achieve the best effect. A blue or yellow wool guntuft rug is available from Habitat on Stephen's Green for £285. Or there are dhurrie carpets with fringes, available in blue, orange and green, ranging from £35 to £225.
