All: my apologies, I mixed up the conversion rate for Kg/Pound and C/F, I should have said "10C/18F" instead of "10C/22F". SuburbanMD: I agree with most of what you said. One does take risks when one selects a different wash process than the labels suggest. I think it's still a manufacturing defect, in that if clothing manufacturers were behaving in an acceptable way, they would have pre-washed the fabrics, interfacings and trims, and the problem would disappear entirely. Properly dyed silk and wool are washable, rayon that has been preshrunk is washable... we shouldn't have to dry clean those garments. In fact, the vast majority of garments that are "delicate" and need to be sent for special treatment at the cleaners (who, by the way, do not dry clean everything they get) are basically stuff that was a bad dye job and/or not preshrunk before construction. Incidentally, while it is possible that the synthetic thread will shrink and bunch up natural fabrics, it's more common that cotton or linen threads shrink when the fabric doesn't, most synthetic threads are highly dimensionally stable polyester, the exception is if one used exceptionally cheap nylon thread, good nylon thread is also very stable up to 200F or so. Dyes are an interesting and complicated subject on their own -- the vast majority of natural dyes are unstable, but except for denim, which we still use, it's rare to find naturally dyed fabrics (they are mostly imported from specific places, like Madra by people who cherish their specific qualities), the vast majority of fabrics sold here use fiber-reactive dye jobs (Procion is one brand name of such dyes). The dyes combine chemically with the fibers and, if processed right, won't bleed or fade until at the very least 52 washes. In fact, the biggest enemy of fiber-reactive dyes is bleaching agents, including sunlight. We've had black shirts that turned dark gray over 10 years of use and hundreds of washing cycles... when the fabric started fraying, I decided to chuck the shirt, but took the cuffs apart where they were fraying to peek inside. What surprised me was the the insides of the cuffs, which were subjected to the very same process the shirt was, was still very dark black. The only explanation was that the inside of the cuffs were spared the sunlight. CaryScott: the questions you ask can't be easily answered. I'd like to disentangle moral judgements ("bad person", "lazy ass", "tightwad") from how clean things are. Why? Because people might in fact be using way more effort, time, money, energy, chemicals etc and working way harder than I am and not getting stuff as clean. What is "clean", how clean is clean? Again, there's the moral judgement stuff people wave around like a dead cat and there's science. Some time ago, during a party, someone said something about "patina" and someone else, half jokingly, asked what the heck was patina? I told her that it's a stain if you don't want it and it's patina if you want the stained effect. She didn't believe me, picked up the Oxford Dictionary and found exactly the same definition. We all laughed about that for a few minutes. In the same spirit, I will offer you that fabrics/clothing are clean when it only has what you want and dirty when it has stuff you don't want in it. Most people will think that grayed/stained/dingy white fabrics are not clean (even if they won't say they are dirty) because those are signs that things were not removed properly (in the case of dirt/stains) or were re-deposited on the fabrics during the wash, rinse and/or drying cycles. In fact, one of my own aunts used to claim that "badly washed is not dirty", because it was better/cleaner than it was before washing. Also, it's possible for things that are overloaded with just the right kind of fluorescent dyes ("optical brighteners") to fluoresce dazzling white but if you look at the light through the fabric you might even find chocolate or grass stains that get covered up by the optical brightener. I, for one, don't think that is clean, it's just covered up so, just because it appears to be clean it doesn't necessarily mean it's clean in my opinion. If we consider things just scientifically, yes, things get cleaner faster with rising temperatures. Can you bargain here? Sure, you may add more chemicals, more time and/or more mechanical energy. At some point, you will be annoyed either by the amount of work it takes (using stain pre-treaters in each and every stain for example), the amount of time it takes (consider that soaking stuff takes time and effort, and clothes that get clean at 140F in 15 minutes would take over one hour to clean at 100F and several hours to clean at 80F), the amount of money it takes (upping the cleaning agents/enzymes in your detergent costs more) and/or the way clothes get worn out faster in the case of increased mechanical agitation. Also, like I said before, some stains will simply not shift with just more time and/or mechanical agitation, you need either stronger chemicals, or higher temps. You ask about the peak performance threshold. I can tell you that it varies. Technically the way laundry agents work, in a very simplified nutshell, is that bleaches destroy dyes so they become transparent, enzymes are catalysts that break soil into stuff more easily removed by water and/or detergent, and detergents have molecules that attach themselves to the soil on one end of the molecule and to water on the other end, thus detaching the soil from the fabrics, suspending the soil in water and then carrying it away when the water is drained and during rinsing. You need enough detergent to remove all the dirt and prevent it from redepositing. In countries where cool water washing is common, laundry detergents often have more kinds and more quantities of different detergents and enzymes. In US it's often only one kind of detergent and maybe a couple of enzymes. Also, in countries where cool wash is common, people often soak and/or sun bleach for hours at a time. In Europe, which has very hard water compared to US, detergents also have way more active ingredients than here, the very same detergent that people often use a cup of in Europe can be dosed in tablespoons here if one has softened water. Detergents in Europe are designed to clean in longer time than here, because the washers often do a profile wash, where the temperature is brought up from cold to warm, held in there for 15-20 minutes for the enzymes to work and then the temperature rises again until the set point, the wash portion of the cycle is often 30-60 minutes and then rinse/spin (another 30-60 minutes) begins. As you'd imagine, Americans would have a conniption fit with that system here, we don't wash every day or two, we tend to collect laundry for a week or more and then want everything done in a couple of hours. So detergents here are designed to peak at 140F/15 minutes wash. By which I mean that if you select a hot wash and dose the chemicals correctly, your load will be cleaned and rinsed properly without pretreatment, unless you have some very nasty stain. On the other hand, if you don't have kids who make a mess eating or playing around, and you don't walk around in socks with a dirty floor, you may get away with cooler and/or shorter washes. But we all have different lifestyles, requirements and time commitments. I promise not to judge you, I can only hope you won't judge us because of laundry. Cheers!

The rug is beautiful. It is kinda hard to say since I don't have a picture of your space. Do you have one you can post?

Oh, I like that one a lot, it’s really pretty CindyMac. I saw last night that it was on sale but still priced a bit higher at Home Depot. :c( I’d still buy it from Home Depot though only because if it were damaged or I didn’t like it in person, I could return it to the store and not have to deal with the return shipping. My situation was a tad different in that I saw our rug first at the store and when I wanted a bigger size, I was directed to the site. Before pulling the trigger, I called their customer service line and was pleasantly surprised at how helpful they were. I had an eye on ours for quite some time and it would go on sale fairly often as a special buy. If you decide to go this route, maybe next time the price will drop more. ETA: I think the one you have in the cart at Overstock and HD is much prettier than the two above. Those two don’t appeal to me at all. What’s keeping you from pulling the trigger?

I guess wool it will be. Next question then is how the runner looks by the entry rug that’s about three feet away from the stairs. The stairs go down so it’s not like you come into the entry and see the rug on the floor and the runner going up some stairs behind it. and below photo is living room rug that’s a little farther away. You wouldn’t ever look at this and the stairs at the same time.