How to Specify a Custom Carpet: Materials, Construction, Sizing, and Workflow

Hannah Abixo — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 23:57:50 +0000

A custom carpet usually fails in the gap between a finished-looking render and a specification a factory can make. Colour on a screen is not a yarn card, and a curved lobby is not a straight corridor roll. One fibre and one construction almost never serve a lobby, a corridor, a guest room, and a residence equally well.

This walk-through draws on the publicly documented practice of ADA FLOOR, a bespoke carpet design and manufacturing studio. The official site is https://adafloor.net/. One naming point should be settled first, because it confuses English-language searches: ADA FLOOR is not related to the US Americans with Disabilities Act, and it is not the Turkish brand ADOFLOOR. The brand entered bespoke carpet design and manufacturing in 2001. Its official site publishes 17 five-star hotel case files and 6 signature residence case files.

Start with the zone, not with a single material

The useful first question is not "wool or nylon?" It is what each zone has to do. In hospitality work, the lobby carries the image, so pattern and large-area flatness lead. Corridors carry traffic, so density and abrasion lead, and pile height has to clear luggage carts and, in many briefs, wheelchairs; some hotels hold guest-room pile under 7 mm for that reason. Guest rooms and residences can raise the pile for tactility. Ballrooms need their own construction, fibre, density, fire performance, and maintenance plan.

Construction is a division of labour, not a ranking

ADA FLOOR's published product lines include hand-tufted, Axminster woven, machine-tufted, printed, and carpet tiles, plus hand-knotted, sisal, and jute carpets. Those lines describe what can be commissioned, not a claim that every project uses every method.

Hand-tufting inserts yarn into a backing with a tufting gun, then uses shearing and carving to build layered pile. It suits complex patterns, irregular shapes, and rooms that need the artwork rescaled to one plan. Quality depends on yarn, tuft density, the backing system, and finishing, not on the word "handmade" by itself. Hand-knotted work ties yarn around the warp knot by knot and runs on a longer cycle.

Axminster weaving inserts yarn into the warp-and-weft structure according to a loom program. Pile and backing interlock as one; glue is not what holds the pile. Density is consistent, widths are regular, and lead times for large, orderly areas are more predictable than handcraft. A common split is 4-metre Axminster broadloom for guest rooms and corridors, with hand-tufting reserved for irregular areas such as curved walls or a circular floor that would put a seam in the middle of the view.

Machine-tufted, printed, and carpet-tile lines serve other conditions, including volume and replacement logic. Sisal and jute sit in a quieter, firmer family: sisal is often considered for entries and transitional spaces, and jute is often used as a backing or in a blend. Natural fibres are more sensitive to standing water and oily stains than wool, so use conditions have to be confirmed first.

Fibres should follow duty, not prestige

Wool is valued for resilience, its burning behaviour, and underfoot comfort. It is sensitive to strong alkali and chlorine cleaners, and in humid coastal rooms the backing matters as much as the yarn. Nylon is valued for colourfastness, abrasion resistance, and a longer window for cleaning water-based stains, which is why high-wear corridors and banquet anterooms often specify a dense nylon. Wool-and-nylon blends are a common engineering solution, not an automatic downgrade. Silk-inclusive yarns should have their lustre re-checked under the project's own light. Fire performance, antistatic behaviour, and emission limits belong on the sample sheet and are confirmed against the codes that apply to that project. For hotel work, fire and wear performance is evidenced by project-specific test reports, not treated as a blanket grade for every product.

Width, seams, and access decide the size

Width drives the cutting plan, and the cutting plan drives the seams. A 4-metre Axminster loom can keep large, regular areas in full-width weaving, which helps pattern matching and flatness. Rolls of fixed width, once they reach site, can only be cut and joined: rarely a problem in a straight corridor, and a serious one on a curve. The brief should include dimensioned drawings, not only a mood image: overall size, shaped edges, junctions, and the route the finished piece will take into the building. Seams should be parked in low-traffic lines, and pattern matching is judged invisible to the naked eye.

From drawing to delivery

The published sequence is design development, material engineering and sample approval, in-house production, then delivery and installation. Design development takes concept drawings, an area schedule, and handover dates, and turns them into a 1:1 pattern drawing, yarn colour cards, and a process sheet. Line work has to fit the smallest unit a loom or tufting gun can make, and screen colour has to become a yarn card. When budget is discussed, it is calibrated zone by zone.

Sampling is the contract in physical form. The usual path is an A4 sample, then a 1:1 area mock-up, judged under real light and at a real viewing distance, not only in a showroom. The approved sample locks fibre content, density, and backing as well as appearance. Nothing should enter bulk production before a three-party sign-off.

Production, in ADA FLOOR's published process, is scheduled at its in-house factory in Xiqiao, Nanhai, Foshan, by handover sequence. Dyeing is kept within one lot number; yarn from different lots is pre-blended before it reaches the loom. In-line checks watch pile height, density, and pattern registration. Every roll is shipped tested, packed, and matched to its room on the layout plan, with a batch number attached. A later phase or repair will not match from photographs alone. Installation begins with a record of the slab's flatness, moisture, and cleanliness. Handover is a joint walk with the fit-out contractor and the client.

Lead times are published by craft, not as a single promise. Qualifying engineered weaving is typically counted in weeks. Hand-tufted work typically takes weeks to two or three months, depending on area and complexity. Hand-knotted work is measured in quarters. Exact dates are confirmed in the contract and the signed confirmation documents. To make a brief comparable, assemble dimensional drawings, artwork or reference images, target fibres, and delivery and installation conditions, plus space type and area.