Rugs in Rhode-Saint-Genèse: buying, restoration, cleaning

Who lives here

It is the only municipality with language facilities bordering both the Brussels Region and the Walloon Region. About 64% of the population is French-speaking, while the administrative language is Dutch.

Two thirds of the residents speak French while the administration works in Dutch: with us you call in whatever language you like, and your rug is valued in that language.

The household profile

Average net income per resident of €25,457, against €19,369 for the Belgian reference average, which places Rhode 4th among the wealthiest Flemish municipalities (2021 ranking). Average income per tax return: €53,592 (2022).

Interiors furnished to last: here an oriental rug is restored — fringes, selvedges, reweaving, work on the colours — rather than replaced. We establish what can be repaired before touching the piece.

The building stock

The municipality covers 2,277 hectares, of which 55.03% is undeveloped land. Its urbanisation came in three waves: Brussels people settling there at the start of the twentieth century, an active policy of parcelling out land between the wars explicitly aimed at the Brussels bourgeoisie, then large-scale housing estates on farmland after 1945.

Three generations of villas, so three generations of rugs: Art Deco from the 1920s and 1930s, post-war Persians, purchases brought back from postings abroad. Each is washed and restored differently, and we always begin by identifying the piece.

The rug market

The median price of a house in Rhode-Saint-Genèse is above €567,000, and the villas in the most closed-off districts go beyond €2 million. These very large plots, behind high walls and gates, are largely passed on within a closed circuit among well-off families. Average price per m²: €3,325, ahead of Waterloo (€3,043) and Braine-l'Alleud (€2,604).

These properties are passed on between families, without going through a saleroom — and the rugs follow the same path. If an estate leaves you old pieces, we come and value them and we buy them for cash.

The local setting

Part of the municipal territory is taken up by the forêt de Soignes. La Petite-Espinette, on the Uccle boundary on the chaussée de Waterloo, sits deep in the forest: the terminus of a tram line electrified as early as 1894 to bring city dwellers to the edge of the woods, it is today a well-known shopping district and a bus stop linking Brussels to Waterloo and Braine-l'Alleud.

Damp from the undergrowth, open fires, dogs coming back from the woods: those are the three reasons we are called out here. Fine soot, mud and animal smell come out in the wash, not with a vacuum cleaner.

Collection

Only 14 km by road from the centre of Brussels: it is one of the closest towns to our workshop. It is served by the chaussée de Waterloo (N5) and has a railway station.

Fourteen kilometres by the chaussée de Waterloo, and it is the town closest to our Brussels workshop: we collect in the morning and your rugs are lying flat at the workshop the same day.