We have a peculiar assortment of rugs here.  The majority are lumped into the ‘oriental’ group with a scattering of others.   Originally, there were fewer.  As always, each generation perpetrated rugs, moved rugs in from other houses, and so forth.  The Keeping room floor was first covered only with a thin, green jute rug.  This was easily rolled up and out of the way to accommodate dancing.  At some point around 1920, the massive (14′ x21′) wool rug came, which is rather difficult to roll up, but then dancing doesn’t exactly happen much these days.  The Dining room has a large, elderly oriental but I strongly suspect (given the wear patterns on the wood underneath) that this room also didn’t have a rug originally.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that rugs were generally only in upstairs rooms.*  As a summer house, with many guests wandering in and out at will, rugs in the big rooms downstairs would have been surplus and a pain. Without a vacuum cleaner, regularly cleaning (or even seasonally cleaning) any rug over 3’x5′ becomes increasingly hard; and over 5’x8′ you really need multiple hefty people, especially with the heavy but floppy hand-woven types.  Unlike modern, industrial rugs, hand-woven rugs generally have no stiff backing: roll them up and flip them over your shoulder and they happily droop…if long enough (or you’re short enough) they hit the ground.  This gets worse with age and wear.  I am working on an elderly oriental rug at the moment that I think I could tie in a knot if it was a bit longer.

*Of course, you end up needing a lot of little rugs…  Or, as is evident in two rooms upstairs you can opt for the early style of wall to wall carpet: long strips tacked or whip-sown together.  Or, everybody wears bed-slippers.