Poor rug

We got this area rug almost eight years ago, right after we got married. Kent had talked me into creating a wedding registry, which I thought was both silly and inappropriate. After all, both of us had been married before and really who would buy us gifts? I reluctantly agreed with the caveat that we'd register only for small things and only at two places; we chose Williams-Sonoma and Pier 1.

As part of the wedding registry scheme, stores generally give you discount coupons when you register. We used the one from Pier 1 to buy a 5x9 wool area rug made up of color blocks. They don't make the rug any more alas, but it sort of looks like this, only the colors were more muted.

Even though it was 100% wool, that rug wasn't the highest quality rug ever made. I wasn't surprised that when we flooded in 2009, it didn't come back in great shape. It was still usable but the binding along one edge had come undone which made vacuuming quite challenging.

The second water incident earlier this year has ended that rug's life. We managed to get it folded up and outside after the frozen pipe burst, but it was soaking wet and of course it froze solid once we got it out there. It's still out there, six weeks later, folded and frozen and waiting for a thaw so we can get it out to the trash.

I think the rug helped us avoid more damage this time, though. I think it acted like a giant sponge and soaked up water that might otherwise have shorted out all our kitchen appliances again.