Me, My Cat and My Shag Rug
Michelle September 8th, 2009
Those of you with uncarpeted wooden floors in your bedroom will understand me when I say that the feel of a cold floor against your feet on a morning is, whilst invigorating, very unpleasant. Of course that’s what slippers were invented for, only they never seem to be in the same place as you left them the night before. It is my belief that a mischievous family of mice come to move them whilst we are sleeping in what must be an international conspiracy (also involving the underpants-gnomes and the squirrels who steal socks leaving you with only odd pairs). The other alternative is a shag rug, and this offers many advantages as I, myself discovered.
I did have an old rug by my bedside, long ago, but I found it to be more of a nuisance than a comfort. It was more of a throw than a rug really. It refused to grip to my polished floors and would not stay in one place. This was dangerous if nothing else. It also had a tendency to move about during the night like my slippers, although I quickly realized that this was because my cat enjoyed sliding about the room on it, crawling underneath it and being generally childish. I grew tired of retrieving and straightening it so it was relegated to the only place it deserved to be – underneath the cat’s basket.
After some persuasion by my boyfriend, however, I did buy myself a new shag area rug. This time it was a nice, thick and heavily shag pile rug. Being much more modern it had a special underside that prevented it from slipping. It’s fury appearance did, at first, make my cat more prone to attacking it but he quickly grew to love it.
There really is nothing quite like the feel of a warm shag rug first thing in the morning.
I never had any of these problems when I slept at my boyfriend’s place (he’s more of a dog person for one). His apartment was always warm and inviting. And not just the bedroom. When the time came to redecorate my house I considered how it was that he had made his small apartment feel so comfortable and how I could achieve the same effect. Not surprisingly, I realized that it was his use of shag rugs that really made the difference. He had shag area rugs in almost every room. That I went out and bought several new round shag rugs of my own seems almost pointless now, as not four months later we decided to move in together. Now we have more shag pile rugs than we could possibly need.
The great thing about rugs is that they provide the warmth of a carpet without entirely concealing your wooden floors. They are also easy to clean. A round shag rug can be machine washed or washed by hand. For larger rugs, special rug cleaning services are available. Of course, rugs can also be taken outside and beaten or shaken, keeping them free of dust and dirt. The other advantage over fitted carpets is that rugs do not require any expensive fitting costs, meaning that you can change them whenever you like.