Shag Me, Baby - Need Rug Advice

[Brian Sheridan]

My wife and I want to buy an area run for our family room.

She found a shag rug in the colors she wanted but to me shag screams 1970's!

Was shag around back in the 30's and 40's? Or was that a modern day invention?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[ShooShooBaby]

i have no idea when shag was invented (but i think it was later than 30s-40s), but can i recommend, if you have children, RUN, not walk, RUN away from shag! legos, barbie shoes, playmobile, and every other kind of small toy kids love become endlessly lost in shag. and then you step on them later and it HURTS!

i should know.... when i was a kid my bedroom was still wall-to-wall shag in a lovely melange of olive green, yellow, and brown. lol

 

[Bill Taylor]

As far as I can recall, shag carpeting did not exist in the 30s or 40s. As well as I can remember, it was not seen until perhaps the early to mid 60s (maybe late 50s) and continued in use up until the early 70s sometime.

During the 30s and 40s, most rooms had a room sized rug over heavily waxed and shined hardwood or wood floors. Often the formal rooms had a domestic oriental rug or a real oriental (or, as my mother called them, a Turkey Rug). Other rooms might have a less expensive"linoleum rug", which was made to look like a domestic oriental rug or with great big gaudy flowers, usually about a 9 X 12 size, sometimes a little bigger. You will see them in old Sears and Monkey Wards catalogs. Often the linoleum rugs were waxed and shined as well. I know this for a fact, as it was my labor which accomplished this dreadful task. Our home which was built in 1915 had 6 bedrooms and two of them had linoleium rugs plus the attic had a couple plus the kitchen. My brothers and I were assigned the task of keeping those and the hardwood floors waxed and polished. With paste carnuba wax and lots of old polishing cloths. There were no "easy care" floors during those times.

Bill

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Thanks for your input. I told my wife she can pick the color and pattern (we both like modern but my taste runs more toward deco), but NO SHAG! It seems I can't justify it by saying "oh, houses in the Golden Age had it." Nope, shag came in during the 1960's and became popular (shudder) in the 1970s. I've been told its hot again but to me it still screams "1970!"

 

[MAGNAVERDE]

Shag carpet dates...

Shag carpets are a lot older than most people realize. Now that I need it, I can't find it but somewhere in my files I have a shag carpet ad--and it's called shag even then--from 1946. I'll see if I can find it tonight and get it posted.

Meanwhile, here's a 194os snapshot of a small flokati rug. Large versions of these were used in Modern interiors as early as the 1920s, became popular in the 193Os thanks to the movies and they may be what inspired the production of shag carpet on a commercial scale in the first place.

None of that, of course, changes the fact that shag's already been disallowed at your house, but at least you can establish the fact that your dates were reliable. That ought to count for something.M.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Wow..that looks like a small furry animal on the floor. Our baby would get lost in that! He'd love it is so soft though.