Durmus said cheap, quick fix tricks can cost customers more in the end, yet most aren’t even aware of authentic done-by-hand services like The Golden Horn’s. He’ll go to The Pier Antique Show in Manhattan, for instance, with his table and carpets, and passers-by will say, “I didn’t know this could be done.”
It’s smart visual marketing for a man whose business is based on a 50-percent referral rate.
“The other day I went to a customer’s house over in Peekskill and she lost the binding and fringe on a Chinese Art Deco 1920s carpet.
“And then she found a local company to fix it and they got artificial fringe and put a lot of glue – yeah glue – and they glued some kind of fabric to the carpet like a binding. Later on the glue will get dry and it’ll come right off. And it’s a big mess,” he lamented.
“They called us to take a look and now it’s become a triple job for us to fix, because the glue is very, very hard to work with. Everything we do is by hand with a needle, so to do this we had to take the glue out. You can really ruin the value of the carpet doing that and it winds up costing more money. It’ll take double time for us to fix and I have to charge double. Nobody told the customer there was another option to fix it. They thought that was the way it should be.”
It takes time and a good eye to do these things correctly, said Durmus, regretting time away from his children, who can’t go to their father’s shop as he did growing up in Turkey. But, he said, “After a while you get used to it and you work like a machine. You have to work very fast in this business and your hands and brain get so used to it that you cannot work slow anyways.”
Visit The Golden Horn at 464 North Main St., Port Chester or online at rugrestoration.com. For a free estimate, call (914) 935-1111.
Samet Durmus’ tips for restoring and preserving rugs
- Clean carefully. “When you vacuum the carpet, you shouldn’t go all the way to the fringe, but three or four inches from the fringe. Plus, if you have an antique carpet, just have the vacuum air-touch the dust, not the brush on the wool or it’ll destroy it.”
- Don’t procrastinate. “In most cases, people wait too long for restoration. Sometimes the carpet has a worn area and they’ll wait longer and it becomes a hole and the foundation breaks, and then they have to spend more money and we have to spend more time fixing it.”
- Don’t be cheap. “Spend money and do it right the first time,” and don’t let anyone fix a hole by cutting and patching from another carpet.
- Use the right padding. “It’s not just for preventing sliding and moving. Good padding should protect the carpet, too, and makes a big difference in making a carpet last much, much longer.”
Latest Comments