Twickenham Historic District · Huntsville, AL
Carpet and rug cleaning in Twickenham, where almost nothing is wall-to-wall
Across thirteen blocks and 65-plus antebellum homes, there is hardly any wall-to-wall carpet in the formal rooms. So most of what we do between Franklin Street and Maple Hill Cemetery is rugs, wool stair runners and antique-frame upholstery, cleaned in your house with so little water the floor underneath stays dry.
- ★ 5.0 · 174 Google reviews
- Rugs from $1/sq ft
- Dry in about an hour
- Rugs cleaned in your home
Family-owned Alabama company · Licensed & insured · 10 to 12 minutes out on our downtown route
Current offers
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What is actually on the floor here
Original heart pine, plaster walls, and rugs older than most of the state
The core district covers thirteen blocks that run east from the Public Square and stop at Maple Hill Cemetery. The Weeden House Museum and Helion Lodge sit inside the same few streets. Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate and Queen Anne houses line Franklin Street, Williams Avenue, Adams Street, Randolph Avenue and McClung Avenue. Under the furniture in nearly all of them is original heart pine or oak. Carpet, where it exists at all, is hiding upstairs.
The 2015 boundary expansion brought a different kind of block into the district. Houses from the 1920s through the 1950s on Newman Avenue, Lowe Avenue, California Street and Eustis Avenue do have wall-to-wall carpet in bedrooms and rear additions, often laid straight over the original boards. Those are the three-room jobs in this zip code.
What both halves share is a low tolerance for water. Plaster, original floors and 1820s framing don't want a soaking, and so do the rugs on top of them. Our low-moisture carpet cleaning uses a fraction of the water a conventional wet clean does, which is the only reason we're comfortable working in these houses at all.
Streets we're on most in 35801
- Franklin Street
- Williams Avenue
- Adams Street
- McClung Avenue
- Eustis Avenue
- Randolph Avenue · Lincoln Street
- Newman Avenue · Lowe Avenue · California Street
Roughly five miles from the shop, in past Big Spring Park and the courthouse.
The calls we get here
What we get hired for, most common first
Antique and hand-knotted rugs
The single biggest reason we get called into this district. Rugs start at $1 a square foot, and velvet or linen pieces are quoted separately. Every one of them is cleaned where it lies, in your home. See the rug cleaning page for the whole process.
Wool stair runners
These staircases are narrow and steep, which funnels every footstep in the house onto a strip about thirty inches wide. Runners darken in the middle years before the edges show a thing. Stairs start at $40 per flight, cleaned tread by tread rather than dragged over.
Upholstery on antique frames
A horsehair settee and a five-year-old sectional do not get the same treatment. Dining chairs start at $10, a loveseat $110 and up, a sofa $140 and up. We check the fabric code and the frame before we quote, and the rates are listed on our upholstery cleaning page.
Bedroom carpet in the newer ring
In the 1920s-to-1950s homes added in 2015, three rooms up to 450 square feet run $109 and extra rooms from $40. Old houses come with old pets and old accidents, so pet stain and odor treatment starting at $30 a room, with a 100% pet odor removal guarantee, is a frequent add.
Before you let anyone in
The questions preservation people ask us at the door
Owners here interview a cleaner the way they interview a roofer, and they should. The four things we get asked before anyone crosses the threshold are pH, dye stability, fringe, and how wet the floor is going to get.
On pH: wool and silk are protein fibers and go dull under harsh alkaline detergent, so we work neutral and non-toxic. On dye: nothing happens until a hidden corner passes a colorfast test, and if the color moves we stop and hand you the reason in writing. On fringe: it gets worked by hand, never scrubbed, and our rug care guide covers what a vacuum beater bar does to it between visits.
On the floor: the rug comes up onto a barrier, the pile leaves damp instead of saturated, and the boards under it stay dry. That is the whole reason a house from 1819 gets cleaned this way and not another.
FREE
Love the clean or it's free. In a district this small, word travels down Franklin Street faster than our van does. We'd like it to travel the right direction.
What it costs
Downtown address, same price list
Three rooms are $109 up to 450 square feet, stairs from $40 a flight, hallways from $20, and the job minimum is $99. Rugs and upholstery are priced by size and fiber, and you get the exact total in writing before we start. Being ten minutes from the shop means there is no drive-time line hiding in the quote.
$1093 rooms cleaned
Around the corner
Other parts of town we work
Twickenham is one stop on a route that covers the whole city. The full picture is on our Huntsville carpet cleaning page.
Twickenham questions we answer at the door
Can you clean carpet in an antebellum home?
Yes, and it's usually a smaller job than people expect. In the 1820s and 1830s houses along Franklin Street and Williams Avenue, wall-to-wall carpet tends to live upstairs, in a back bedroom, or in a later addition rather than the formal rooms. We clean it with a low-moisture process so water never reaches the original boards or the plaster below, and the written price comes before the work.
Is low-moisture cleaning safe for antique rugs?
Safe, but only after we test. Every antique or hand-knotted rug gets a colorfast check in a hidden corner before a drop of solution touches the field. Rugs start at $1 a square foot, and dry-clean-only fabrics like velvet and linen are priced once we have read the care tag. We clean all of them in your home, on your floor. Nothing gets rolled up and hauled off.
Do you work in homes on the historic register?
Yes. The district went on the National Register in 1973 after becoming Huntsville's first local historic district in 1972, and those listings govern the outside of your house, not what happens to a rug in the parlor. We're licensed and insured, our equipment is portable and comes through the door by hand, and nothing gets clamped to a doorframe or run through a window. Ask us to work around a piece and we will.
What if my carpet is too fragile to clean?
Then we tell you at the door and charge you nothing. Dry rot in an old backing, a dye that moves under a test swab, or fiber that has gone brittle are all reasons to stop, and we'd rather lose one job than ruin a rug that's been in your family longer than we've been in business. Sometimes the answer is a dry pass and careful spot work instead of a full clean. You'll get that recommendation in writing too.
Carpet you can walk on in about an hour.
3 rooms for $109 · Love the clean or it's free.