Bespoke Rugs: How a Rug Commission Works

A bespoke rug is one made to a specific room rather than chosen from stock. There are two routes: weaving a new rug to order on a loom, which sets size, color, fiber and drawing but takes months; or cutting and rebinding an existing rug, which is fast and cheap but cannot change the pattern.

Most enquiries that reach us as "can you make a custom rug" are really one of those two jobs, and the two behave nothing alike in cost, in schedule or in what can still be changed once work has started. This page sets out what each route can do, what it cannot do, how the design and sampling steps run, what governs the lead time, and exactly what we need from you before anyone can quote a price. Commissions begin at custom rug commissions.

The two routes, side by side

Choose by which constraint is hardest: if the pattern must be yours, the rug is woven; if the date is next month, the rug is cut.

	Woven to order	Cut from an existing rug
What it sets	Size, proportion, palette, fiber, knot density, pile height, border, drawing	Size and outline only
What it cannot do	Beat the loom. A hand-knotted rug is tied one knot at a time and the schedule follows from that	Change the pattern, move a medallion to a new center, or restore a border it removes
Typical schedule	Months, from approved sample to finished rug	Days once the piece is chosen and the cut is agreed
Reversible?	Yes, until the sample is approved	No. A cut is permanent and it reduces the rug's resale value
Suits	A room with fixed dimensions, a palette to match, a drawing of your own, or a pair that must match	An odd width, a corridor, a landing, a niche, a shaped floor, or a deadline

Route one: woven to order

This is a design job first and a weaving job second, and the design is where the months go.

• Brief. Finished dimensions, the room and how it is used, the construction — hand-knotted, loom-woven or flat-woven — and the fiber. This is also where a drawing of your own enters, if you have one.
• Palette. Colors are decided as dyed yarn, not as screen colors or print swatches. Two colors that match under a showroom lamp can separate under daylight, so the yarn set is approved beside the fabrics, wood and paint it will actually sit next to.
• Drawing to scale. The design is set out at the finished size, which is where a motif that looked right on a page turns out to be too large for a 200 × 300 cm (6'7" × 9'10") field, or where a border eats the proportion of the central medallion. Adjustments here cost nothing. Later they cost the rug.
• Woven sample. A piece of the real design in the real yarn at the real density. It is the last honest look at how the color reads in pile rather than on a card, and it is the point at which the design is signed off.
• Weaving. After approval, the loom is set up and the rug is woven. Changes after this point mean starting again.

What this route can do: any size the loom width allows, a palette matched to a room, a fiber chosen for the traffic, a traditional design redrawn in your colors, or a pair of rugs woven to match. Halıcızade's own designed series — Zade, Zima, Günyolu, Ayan and Baş Başa — began as exactly this process, and each carries a tree-of-life motif in the border as the house signature; the motif itself is explained in the tree of life and what it means. A recolor or a resize of one of those designs is the shortest bespoke route there is, and it is the one most commissions end up taking. See the Zade series, the Zima series and the Günyolu series.

What it cannot do: produce a photograph in wool. Pile is a coarse medium and its resolution is set by knot density, so fine gradients, small type and photographic detail either disappear or force a knot count that changes the price band entirely. It also cannot guarantee an exact color match to a paint chip, because dyed wool has depth and variation that a flat surface does not.

Route two: cut from an existing rug

A rug is cut to a new size and the raw edge is bound. It is the right answer far more often than the trade admits, and it is the wrong answer whenever the pattern matters.

It handles an awkward floor quickly: a corridor that needs a 78 cm width, a landing, a bay, a shaped alcove, or two runners taken from one wide rug. Machine-woven and loom-woven pieces cut cleanly. Hand-knotted rugs can be cut, and the edge is secured immediately so the knots at the cut line cannot work loose.

The limits are real and they are worth stating plainly.

• The border goes. Cutting a side removes the border on that side. The new edge is bound, and a bound edge does not look like a woven selvedge, however well it is done.
• The medallion stays where it is. Taking 40 cm off one side moves the central medallion 20 cm off center. A medallion rug cut asymmetrically reads as wrong even to people who cannot say why.
• The fringe is not recoverable. Cut across the width and the warp fringe at that end is gone. A fringe can be sewn on afterward, and a sewn fringe is a trimming, not the continuation of the warp.
• It is permanent, and it costs resale. A rug in original dimensions is worth more than the same rug cut down, and there is no way back.

Which is why the first thing we do with a cut enquiry is check whether an uncut rug in the right size exists — often it does, in an ordinary runner or a square — and only cut when it does not.

What we need before anyone can quote

A quote that arrives in a day is a quote built from these seven things. Without them the answer is a range, and a range wastes both sides' time.

• Finished dimensions, in centimeters, with a rough plan of the room and the furniture on it. Say whether the rug sits under all the furniture legs, the front legs only, or none of them.
• Quantity, and whether the pieces must match. Two rugs that must read as a pair are a different job from two rugs in the same colors.
• Construction and fiber. Hand-knotted, loom-woven or flat-woven; wool, silk, cotton, Tencel or a blend. If knot density, pile height or weight per square meter matter to you, say so now.
• The room. Photographs of the floor and the light, the direction the windows face, and the type of artificial light. Plus physical samples of what the rug has to live beside — fabric, wood, stone, a paint card.
• The date. The date the rug is needed, and what is behind it. This single answer decides which of the two routes is even available.
• Fixed constraints. Budget band, underfloor heating, whether the rug goes over stairs, and any documentation your own consultants will ask for.
• Artwork, where you are bringing a design of your own: at a usable size, ideally as vector, with any color references named.

Designers and specifiers working to a project program will find the same ground covered from the site side in rugs in interior design projects.

Lead times, and why we will not print one number

Because a printed number would be a guess, and a guessed date is worse than no date.

The schedule is governed by four things: which route, the construction, the size, and whether the yarn has to be dyed to a new color. Cutting and binding is measured in days. A loom-woven rug is faster than a hand-knotted one of the same size. A hand-knotted rug is tied knot by knot, so its schedule scales with area and density, and a fine large piece can run considerably longer than a coarse small one. Sampling adds its own weeks before any of that begins, and a color revision after the sample restarts that stage.

For scale, almost nobody in this category publishes lead times at all; the one house that does quotes 10 to 14 weeks for handloom rugs and 16 to 22 weeks for bespoke hand-knotted work. Our practice is to give a specific date in writing on the quotation, before a deposit, for the specific rug being commissioned — and to give it early, because a date named after the deposit is not a commitment.

What we do not publish

Finished commissions and client interiors. We do not publish project or client photography, so nothing on this site should be read as a portfolio of completed private work. What we can show is the material itself: yarn, sample weaves, the drawing at scale, and the woven series the designs come from. That is also what is worth looking at, since a photograph of somebody else's room tells you very little about how a color will behave in yours.

Frequently asked questions

What is a bespoke rug?

A rug made to a specific room rather than selected from stock. It is produced either by weaving a new rug to order, which sets size, color, fiber and drawing, or by cutting an existing rug to a new size and binding the edge, which changes the outline only.

Can any rug be cut to size?

Physically almost any rug can be cut and bound, but the pattern decides whether it should be. Cutting removes the border on the cut sides, moves a central medallion off center, and cannot be undone, so it suits repeating fields and plain grounds far better than medallion designs.

How long does a custom rug take?

Cutting and binding an existing rug takes days once the piece and the cut are agreed. Weaving to order is measured in months, driven by construction, size, density and whether yarn must be dyed to a new color, with sampling adding weeks before weaving starts.

What do I need to send to get a quote?

Finished dimensions with a plan of the room, quantity and whether the pieces must match, the construction and fiber required, photographs of the room with samples of adjacent materials, the date the rug is needed, any fixed constraints such as budget or underfloor heating, and your artwork if you have a design.

Can you weave a photograph or a logo into a rug?

Only within the resolution of the pile. Knot density sets how fine the drawing can be, so simplified marks and clear shapes translate well, while photographic gradients, small lettering and fine detail either disappear or push the knot count into a much higher price band.

Will the color match my fabric exactly?

It is matched as dyed yarn, approved next to the actual fabric, and checked in the room's own light rather than under a showroom lamp. Dyed wool has depth and slight variation that a flat swatch does not, so the target is a match in the room, not an identical flat color.

Does cutting a rug reduce its value?

Yes. A rug in its original dimensions with all four borders intact is worth more than the same rug cut down, and the change is permanent. Where resale matters, look for an uncut rug in the size you need before agreeing to a cut.

Further reading: what a loom-woven rug is · kilim motifs and their meanings · knot density and the KPSI myth · custom rug commissions