We have a jute rug we’ve inherited through the years that sheds like it’s going out of fashion and shows no sign of stopping – and we have reached a sort of détente with it; mostly maintained by keeping a dustpan by our elbows at all times as if it were a training pet.
Jute’s a good-looking fibre in that effortlessly capable way that wicker baskets and linen shirts are good-looking, and it does one job better than every other rug we’ve ever owned, which is live under our coffee table for two years without so much as a raised eyebrow from anyone. Hardly Everest. Eventually all rugs need some kind of assistance: a spillage, a frayed edge, something. This one mostly just hangs out.
It will not, under any circumstances, however, handle children with wet feet, over-turned glasses of squash, or dogs that have been forured in the rain and view the hallway rug as a personal towel. Ask us how we know. We’ve found this out on numerous occasions through accident and the rug has never failed to remind us afterwards.
Jute has a smell when it’s completely and truly soaked that we’re not going to detail here because some of you are eating.
The shedding was always the elephant in the room, though.
Most people never mention it until someone trips over the stair runner and it rockets back into conversation.
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Someone trod onto the hallway rug once in a pair of black socks exactly the same colour as the rug and came out the other side looking like they’d been rolled in fibre-optic cables and suddenly everyone is saying things out loud.
Team Mascuggini reckons it’s worth it for how the rug looks. Team Andrea maintains no-one mentioned how much it sheds during the buying process and have been secretly seething about it ever since. Under your feet it’s rougher than people anticipate – which isn’t an issue if you’re always wearing shoes like in the hallway – but when you’re barefoot in bed it suddenly matters.
We tried it in a bedroom once.
Bad idea.
Swore until we moved it downstairs into the dining room where it remains today: quietly correct, ready to catch spills and muddy boots whilst rooting through teacup stains for crumbs.
On photo shoots, it looks lovely. It’s alright really. It does its job. We’ll probably buy another one when we move house. For now. Buy it if you’ve got a room that doesn’t get muddy boots or kids that spill stuff. Don’t buy it if you’re hoping it’ll look past that kind of thing. It won’t.
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