Antique Restoration Shop for Persian Rugs: Rug Masters

Rug Masters sits at 1890 Market Street, on the corner of Market and Laguna where Hayes Valley meets the Castro end of upper Market, and its windows are hung with folded Persian, Turkish and Afghan carpets. Behind the sales floor is the repair side of the business: reweaving, moth damage, new fringe and bindings. For an antique restoration shop that deals only in rugs, this corner is the most central option in San Francisco.

The restoration services on the official site read like a checklist of everything that goes wrong with a hand-knotted rug. Reweaving rebuilds pile and foundation where it has worn through. Moth damage repair fills the bald patches larvae leave in wool. Re-fringing replaces the warp ends at each short side. Overcasting and binding wrap the long edges, known as selvedges, so they stop unravelling. Resizing cuts a rug down and finishes it to fit a room.

Two less common jobs are worth knowing. Rug Masters lists correcting dye runs, the bleeding of reds into ivory fields that often follows a flood or a careless home wash, and it offers appraisals. If you have inherited a rug and do not know whether it is a 1920s Sarouk or a recent machine copy, an appraisal before any repair is the right order.

One detail sets the shop apart: the site says the restoration is done in-house and by hand, and that customers are welcome to visit and watch the artisans at work. For anyone nervous about sending a family rug away, seeing a section being reknotted in matching wool is reassuring, and it is a chance to ask how a repair will look from the front and the back.

Hand reweaving is slow. A palm-sized patch of moth damage on a fine Persian can take many hours, because each knot is tied individually and the wool has to be matched in color, twist and thickness so the repair does not show as a dull island when light hits the pile.

The process starts with an evaluation of the rug, then an assessment of the damage, a precise estimate and a timeframe. Estimates are free, with no obligation. Rug Masters also advertises free pickup and delivery and three months of free storage, which helps if you are moving or renovating and want the rug out of the house until the floors are done.

No restoration prices are published, since cost depends on knot density, the size of the damage and how far the dyes must be matched. The shop does run coupons, but its terms say they only apply when the client brings the rugs in, so it can pay to carry a small rug to the corner yourself rather than book the free pickup.

Not every rug earns a full reweave. A hand-knotted antique with good wool and natural dyes usually justifies the hours, because a well-repaired Heriz or Kashan holds its value and can last another hundred years on the floor. A thin, sun-faded rug with heavy foundation damage may be better served by securing the edges and fringe so it can be used gently, or hung on a wall.

This is where the shop's mix of selling and repairing helps. Because Rug Masters also sells Persian, Turkish, Afghan and antique rugs, the people writing your estimate see what comparable pieces are worth, and an appraisal can settle whether the repair makes sense before money is spent on it.

Rug Masters says it has more than 20 years of experience repairing old and antique Persian rugs and that its North Bay store has been in business since 1995. The company runs locations in San Rafael and Berkeley as well as this one, so make sure you are calling and visiting the San Francisco branch on Market Street. Blog posts on the site, including entries from February and April 2026, are written by Iraj Baghestani and cover cleaning and repair topics in plain language.

The name appears both as Rug Master and Rug Masters online, which is worth knowing when you look up reviews or directions.

Take photos of the front and back of the rug and of each damaged area next to a ruler or tape measure. Note the overall size, any old repairs you can see, and whether the rug has been wet.

The official site posts two different sets of Tuesday-to-Sunday hours, so call ahead before walking over with a heavy rug. The shop is closed on Mondays under both versions.

The F-Market historic streetcar stops right at Market and Laguna, and the Van Ness Muni Metro station is a few minutes' walk east, so a small rolled rug can come by transit. The corner is also a short walk from the Hayes Valley shopping blocks on Hayes Street.

After a drop-off, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center on the next block of Market is the landmark to look for, and Zuni Café, the copper-bar restaurant famous for its roast chicken for two cooked in a brick oven, is a few blocks down Market toward Van Ness. Patricia's Green, the small park in the middle of Octavia Boulevard, is an easy detour north into Hayes Valley.

Address: 1890 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102, at the corner of Laguna Street. Email: cleanmyrugs@gmail.com. Services: rug restoration, reweaving, moth damage repair, re-fringing, overcasting, binding, resizing, dye-run correction, appraisals, cleaning and rug pads. Free estimates, free pickup and delivery, and three months of free storage.

Send photos first, measure the rug, and decide whether you want the free pickup or a coupon for bringing it in. Ask the Karpo APP to find lunch in Hayes Valley or a coffee on Market while the estimate is being written up.