How Long Does a Custom Rug Take? Weeks by Size, Step by Step

A Zarbish custom rug takes the standard weeks for its size, plus one week when the colors are changed or the design is new: 4 to 5 weeks for a runner or a rug up to 120x185 cm, 7 to 9 weeks above 275x365 cm. A custom size of one of our designs takes the standard weeks. Weeks count from your written approval; free delivery adds 3 to 7 business days.

How long does a custom rug take, by size?

A custom rug's weeks count from the day you approve it in writing, not the day you first write to us, and they run in two parts: the weeks on the loom, then 3 to 7 business days of free delivery. New colors or a new design add one week to the standard weeks for its size; a custom size of one of our designs, left unchanged, adds nothing. Every step of a custom order, from your first idea to the rug at your door, is laid out in one place.

Square rugs sit in the band of a rectangle of similar area: the standard 215x215 and 245x245 cm take 5 to 6 weeks and 305x305 cm 6 to 8 weeks; a custom 185x185 cm takes 4 to 5 weeks and a custom 395x395 cm 6 to 8, plus the same one week for a custom design.

A worked example: approve a 245x305 cm custom design on the first of the month, and it spends 6 to 7 weeks on the loom, then reaches you 3 to 7 business days after it ships. Plan on about two months from approval to the room. The loom schedule shows how your place on the loom is set.

Why does a hand-knotted rug take weeks?

A hand-knotted rug takes weeks because the weavers tie every knot by hand around the warp threads, one row after another, and the pattern rises from the bottom edge a row at a time. A bigger rug is more rows, so the weeks step up with size. Our workshop weaves on upright steel looms, the modern version of the traditional wooden loom; the knotting itself is unchanged.

After the last row, the weavers cut the rug from the loom and wash it, checking every color against the final design.

If the videos in your search show a custom rug finished in a weekend, that is tufting: a tufting gun shoots yarn through a stretched backing cloth, and a second backing is glued over the back. It is quicker because it is a different construction, with no knots holding the pile. Both are sold as custom rugs, so ask which one you are being quoted for.

Custom design or custom size?

A custom design changes the pattern; new colors change only the colors of one of our designs; a custom size keeps one of our designs exactly as it is and changes only its dimensions. The difference decides the week, the price and how you order.

Both go up to 455 cm wide and 915 cm long, or 455 cm across for a round rug, and handwork allows 3 to 4 cm (about 3 to 4 cm) on the confirmed dimensions, so a rug planned to fit between two walls wants a little room at the edges. If you are still choosing the size, is your rug too small runs the living room checks, and the size guide covers bedrooms, dining rooms and hallways.

What happens before the loom starts?

Before a custom design reaches the loom, it goes through a mockup and your written approval, and that part is usually the quickest of the whole wait. Six steps, and money changes hands only at the fifth:

1. Share the idea on the custom design form: a photo, a sketch or a sentence, the shape, the size or the room, and the colors. Enter the size and the form shows an estimated price.
2. We design a mockup. Your first mockup within 1 hour. We are open every day, 10:00 to midnight, Morocco time (GMT+1).
3. You ask for changes. A color too warm, a border you don't want: we revise the design until it is the rug you meant, as many times as it takes.
4. You approve in writing: the design, the size, the colors, the pile height, the tassels and the exact price. From here the design is final, so a custom design can't be cancelled, returned or exchanged once approved.
5. You pay in full. No deposit, no balance later. Your place on the loom starts.
6. The weavers make it, and it ships free: designed with you, made by Zarbish for you.

Every extra photo with your request tends to save a round of changes: the sofa, the floor or the curtains the rug will sit beside, because color is judged against what it lives next to. A sentence is enough to start, though. "A quiet ivory rug with one soft green line near each end" is a design brief.

The mockup is where a photo turns into wool: it shows the pattern at your size, in your colors, before anything is knotted.

Can a custom rug be ready by a date?

A custom rug can be ready by a date when the date leaves room for the weeks in the table. Count back from it: delivery of 3 to 7 business days, the production weeks for your size, and the day or two the mockup conversation usually takes. Put the date in the form's needed-by field; if the loom schedule cannot meet it, we tell you before you order, not after.

Designers working to an installation date can ask for a trade quote, which comes within 1 to 2 working hours, and project dates are confirmed against current production before the client commits.

How much does a custom rug cost?

A Zarbish custom design costs the standard price of the same size and shape, times 1.10 for a change of colors on one of our designs (set on its page with an instant preview, with one extra week), or times 1.20 for a custom design with a changed motif or an original pattern. Shipping is free.

Pile height and tassels never change the price, and US buyers pay no import duties; in the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Mexico, Australia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Zarbish pays the import VAT, GST or HST, and elsewhere the courier collects import taxes on delivery. The exact figure comes with your mockup, before you approve anything. For what that price pays for, from the wool to the weeks at the loom, read are Moroccan rugs worth it.

The faster route: one of our designs

One of our designs in a standard size skips the mockup and the extra week: a 245x305 cm rug takes 5 to 6 weeks instead of 6 to 7, and it is the only route you can return within 30 days. On its product page, See it in your room places the rug in a photo of your own room in about 20 seconds, so you can judge color and scale before you order.

Many custom requests begin with a design that is almost right, and Tigmi shows what a change does. On the cover it is a windowpane grid of purple and brown around ivory squares, firm enough to hold a long curved sofa in place. The round version recomposes the grid for the circle, in terracotta squares crossed by navy lines, and a tonal terracotta version lets the same squares sit close to their ground. If a grid is your starting point, the Dama collection holds the checkered and plaid designs to begin from.

Tadla makes the opposite argument: one pale wool, with the pattern carved into the pile as raised squares split by lower channels. It is the rug to start from when the room already has plenty to look at and wants texture instead of another pattern, and a different shade is set on its page, with an instant preview.

Start with the photo you keep coming back to, or with a design of ours that is almost right. If that photo is a cottage room full of florals, cottagecore decor shows how a wool rug sits in it.