Finding the perfect rug with Tony at Tony Kitz Gallery is a special experience I’ve written about before. Tony has been buying and selling antiques since the age of 16, and has owned his own namesake showroom in the SF Design District since 1994. Suffice to say this guys knows his stuff! Taking my interior design clients to his showroom is always a rewarding experience – not only do I leave with satisfied clients, but I usually come away with a great geography or history lesson and a better understanding of the design process, too.

Given how much fun I have buying rugs from Tony’s showroom, I recently sat down with the industry pro to talk shop:

AM: What initially drew you to carpets? Are they a life-long passion or something you fell in love with as an adult?

TK: I got into it almost by mistake. I was initially interested in mid century furniture, and got a job at a gallery during college. It turned out to be a great gallery that sold really high-end collector items, and I was working with one of best guys in the country for decorative rugs. I ended up falling in love with the industry – with the color and the whole sense of both the business side, and the art of it. It was something I never thought of doing, but it became a passion.

AM: Why is thoughtfully picking a carpet an important step in the interior design process?

TK: It’s the base of color in the room. That’s basically it. It sets the tone of the entire room. It’s probably the most important piece in the room for determining palette and how that palette progresses in any space.

AM: What do you look for in carpets you curate?

TK: I look for design, color, and I look for an ethnographic quality or art value that I think relates to either contemporary art or a western aesthetic and taste. I don’t like fancy Persian carpets.

AM: From where did the most interesting carpet you found come from?

TK: Definitely trips to Turkey are great – I love going to Turkey, it’s one of my favorite places. A lot of my handmade contemporary carpets come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or India. But you can’t buy them there. All the looms are controlled by one or two families, so that means interesting trips to New Jersey, Los Angeles, and unexpected places like that.

I’ve purchased antique and vintage rugs all over the place. I’ve bought things in small towns, even fishing villages in Oregon. A lot of sourcing is done through dealers and pickers since some many great pieces come out of old homes somewhere. The travel aspect is an important part of the job but it’s not as glamorous as you think!

AM: Is it hard to sell carpets that you have become attached to?

TK: No! I don’t get emotionally invested. It’s not hard to sell them. I don’t collect things. I have some carpets at home, but if someone wants them, they’re available and I’ll find a way to get others. It’s really difficult to be both a collector and a dealer at the same time.

AM: What was the hardest carpet to let go?

TK: There are some things that you do get attached to because they’re so unique and different. Or they have a certain palette or folk art quality about them that’s honest, beautiful, and memorable, and you become passionate about them. You want them to go to a good home, but I have no problem letting them go.

AM: How much of your sales are antique carpets and how much is produced now?

TK: 50/50

AM: How do you tell the difference between a true antique and one produced currently?

TK: It takes 10 years to know what you’re doing, of handling them every single day. For instance, you can have what looks to be an old carpet, but be a completely new carpet because they will have taken the old foundation of a carpet, removed all the wool, respun old wool from some other carpet, re-tied it in a way that looks too good to be true, and then put a bad repair in the brand new carpet to throw you off from knowing it’s a brand new carpet all together. It just takes a lot of time and knowledge to know what you’re looking at and how it relates to all the other carpets in a particularly category. You need to be a pro. The best thing to do is get an expert option.

AM: What’s the first question you ask interior designers or clients when they come to your shop?

TK: Often designers will have fabrics with them and an idea of the room. What I like to know is what kind of house it is, get a sense of the space, maybe see an object they might love, a palette they want to use, something about the client, and most importantly a size range. I want to know what other things are going with it – like is the client a contemporary art collector or do they collect African sculptures? It really determines what I end up showing the client or designer. I’m happy to show every rug in the store, but 90% of these rugs won’t qualify, and 10% of them will be really good for that project. So I want to save time, and I can often zero in on what I think will look good for the space.

AM: What’s one thing that surprises homeowners when they shop with you?

TK: I think the surprising thing is that I just don’t think about rugs all the time, but I think about the entire project. I think they’re surprised at the options they didn’t think about, or something new and unexpected. There’s more out there than a big red rug with something in the middle of it.

AM: What’s the biggest hiccup when working with interior designers?

TK: I like designers to have as much information for me as possible, so I can show them the right thing. I definitely like them to have their sizes right. If we put a whole presentation together and the sizes are wrong, then that’s time consuming and frustrating. So have your measurements right! And definitely have a sense of the direction you want to go in the room. Have a plan with the room. It makes me helping them so much more successful.

One of my favorite things about working in this business is working with designers and seeing the project at the end when it’s all installed and often how surprised I am with how beautiful it looks. It’s one of the rewarding things about working with the design trade.

AM: What carpets do you have in your own home?

TK: They change around, I have an antique runner in the hallway. I have a contemporary striped rug made of vintage re-spun wool in the living room. I have a number of really good mounted textiles – a Japanese textile, a Moroccan textile, and a few other this’s and that’s hanging around the place. It doesn’t look like the grand bazaar at all – it’s very pared down!