Green Bordered Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

The green is the green of a forest floor rather than of a lawn — deep, faintly gray, absorbing light instead of throwing it back. Green Bordered Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, 169 × 238 cm (5'7" × 7'10"), knotted in India, with a wool surface, bamboo viscose in the motifs and a cotton foundation beneath. One of one.

A narrow band of fine motifs runs the whole way round and everything it encloses is left plain. That is the entire composition, and it works because a border does two things at once: it pulls the eye inward and it gives the field an edge, which a plain rug without one never has. In a north-facing room the green goes nearly black; under warm bulbs the bamboo viscose in the band picks up and the outline reappears.

Wool at the surface, bamboo viscose in the drawing, cotton underneath holding the structure — knotted by hand in India, knot after knot, which is why no two rugs off this run have quite the same hand. A wool pile at this height is made for bare feet, and that is how it is best used. A dark ground is more forgiving of spills than a pale one but it shows lint, so it asks for the vacuum more often than for anything else. For more than that, find a rug cleaner.

• Hand-knotted in India; wool surface, bamboo viscose motifs, cotton foundation.
• Deep forest green, plain in the field, with all the drawing in the border.
• The band brightens under warm light and recedes under cool.
• Soft enough underfoot to be used without slippers.
• 169 × 238 cm (5'7" × 7'10") — a sitting room, a study or a bedroom.
• Shows lint on a dark ground; vacuum regularly.
• Cleaning by a rug specialist.

Green is the color most rooms already contain and rarely acknowledge, and a floor in it makes the plants look deliberate.