A custom rug from Organic Looms is drawn with you, knotted by hand, and priced the same per square foot as the rugs already on our floor. There is no design fee, and an odd size costs nothing extra.
Most custom projects start at our showroom in the Scottsdale Design District, on the southwest corner of 68th Street and Thomas Road. You walk the floor, find a rug whose weave and feel you like, and then we change what needs changing. Sometimes that is only the size. Sometimes it is the colors, the pattern and the pile height all at once. Some clients bring a fabric swatch, others a floor plan. Either is a good place to begin.
How does a custom rug order work?
You approve a physical sample before the full rug is ever tied. The whole process has five steps, and each one gives you a chance to change your mind.
It starts with measuring. For most homes in the Valley we come to you, tape out the room and look at the light, because a color that glows under a skylight can go flat in a room shaded by a deep patio overhang. Next we choose the construction and fibers, usually starting from a showroom rug you already like.
Then the design is built in rug design software, a form of AutoCAD that sets the yarn, color and knot for every point on the rug. Colors are matched with real yarn poms, not a screen. After you sign off on the drawing, the workshop weaves a small strike-off in your colors, and it usually reaches Scottsdale 30 to 45 days later. Hold it, walk it around the room, and look at it after dark. If the green reads too cold at night, say so, and it gets fixed before the loom is dressed.
A 50% deposit reserves the loom and the production schedule. Then comes the weaving itself, followed by washing, stretching, sun drying and hand binding, and the balance is due when the rug is ready to be cut from the loom. Local installation is always included.
How long does a custom rug take to make?
Plan on roughly 12 to 16 weeks for most custom rugs, counting from your order to delivery. Very large or very fine pieces take longer.
Hand-knotting is slow on purpose. Weavers tie each knot by hand and cut the yarn with a hooked knife, thousands of times over, and a big rug can keep a loom busy for months. Washing and drying happen outdoors in the sun, so weather at the workshop can add days. After that, the rug flies to Scottsdale. Shipping by air, never by sea, keeps that last leg predictable. We would rather give you an honest window than a hopeful one. If a date moves, we call you before you have to call us.
Got a real deadline, like a move-in date or a photo shoot? Tell us at the first meeting. Because we work with the looms directly, we can sometimes reserve a larger loom or add shifts, but only when we know early. Building a new home? Start the rug when the flooring is chosen, well before the furniture arrives.
What does a custom rug cost compared to a rug in stock?
The same per square foot. A custom rug is priced like a comparable rug from our inventory, and the design work costs nothing.
Most stores charge extra for custom, and on their end it makes sense. They buy from an importer, who buys from an exporter, who buys from the workshop, and every one of them adds a margin to a one-off order. We skip those steps. Christopher and Jaime buy straight from the looms they visit on their rug buying trips to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is how our designer net pricing stays below typical retail for hand-knotted rugs, custom or not.
What moves the price is the rug itself. Silk costs more than wool. A denser weave, with more knots per square inch, takes longer to tie. A 10 by 14 costs more than an 8 by 10. We show you where each choice moves the number before you commit to anything, and the strike-off lets you check color and texture before the big spend.
Which sizes and materials can you choose?
Nearly any size, in wool, silk, hemp, jute or linen, or a blend of them.
Each custom rug is woven to order, so the loom is set to your dimensions. That matters in rooms where stock sizes fall short, like a long gallery hall or a great room under a 20 foot ceiling, and we have commissioned rugs well past 15 by 20 feet. The fibers are natural and spun by hand, with no synthetic latex backing and no chemical stain coating, the same standard behind all of our organic, non-toxic rugs.
Wool is our usual pick for Arizona homes. It sits well on hard tile, handles bright sun, and its natural lanolin sheds spills. Silk adds sheen and a softer hand, and it is often knotted into the pattern of a wool rug rather than used alone. Hemp and jute give a flatter, earthier texture for casual rooms. One thing to expect with any custom color: dye lots are matched by eye, so a little movement in tone is normal. It is part of what shows you how a hand-knotted rug is woven and not printed.
Can our interior designer work with you directly?
Yes. A large share of our custom work comes through interior designers, architects and realtors, and we are set up for it.
We hold rugs for client presentations, send memo samples, and coordinate specifications and delivery with whoever is running the project. Being in the Design District helps. A designer can pull fabric at one of the trade showrooms on the same block and match it against our yarn poms that afternoon. Projects outside Arizona work too. One client bought three rugs from us for a home in Florida, and the review mentioned they were shipped and packed with care.
Scale is where designers lean on us most. Estates in north Scottsdale and around Camelback Mountain often have rooms no stock size can fill, and we have made enough large rugs for Paradise Valley homes to know how the proportions work in them. As one trade client wrote in a Google review, "We have purchased numerous rugs from Organic Looms for our clients and have yet to have a client disappointed."