Home Décor
Buy and sell rugs, mirrors and wall art in Guatemala.
A wool rug from a Momostenango foot loom shows its pattern on both faces, so it can be turned over when one side fades; a printed copy cannot, and that difference decides what the rug is worth years later. New and pre-owned, the décor here runs from handwoven pieces like that to the mirrors, lamps, curtains and cushions of ordinary homes. Much of it changes hands when people move, and the useful questions are the same every time: how big it is, how heavy, and whether a hand or a machine made it.
Rugs underfoot, lamps overhead and the art in between:
many Guatemalan living rooms are built around one handwoven piece. Floor pieces, from a Momostenango wool rug to a washable synthetic runner, are in rugs. The wall splits two ways: mirrors, where the weight and the hardware on the back matter as much as the frame, and art, where a Comalapa oil painting hangs beside prints and framed photographs. Ceiling, floor and bedside lamps are in lighting. Fabric goes in curtains and blinds, bought by the width of the window, and cushions and pillows, where many covers are cut from old huipiles or ikat cloth. Candles and reed diffusers go in home fragrances.
Momostenango wool, Salcajá ikat and their machine-made copies:
the handwoven version is what holds its value, and copies are easy to spot. Momostenango rugs and blankets are woven on foot looms from highland sheep’s wool, with the coloured weft carried right through the cloth, so the pattern shows on both sides with faint horizontal ridges. A printed or tufted rug shows its design on one face and a plain backing on the other. Ikat from Salcajá is tied and dyed in the thread before it is woven, which leaves the edges of each motif soft and slightly blurred; a print sits on top of the cloth, with crisp edges and a paler underside. On a cushion cover made from a huipil, woven brocade can also be seen from the inside, while machine embroidery shows a backing fabric and a dense, perfectly even line of stitches.
How a heavy mirror hangs on concrete block or drywall:
carefully, because the ground in Guatemala moves often enough that a mirror on one nail above a bed is a risk rather than a look. Most houses have concrete block walls, which take a masonry bit and a plastic wall plug for every screw. Apartments and newer partitions are often drywall, where an ordinary plug pulls out under weight and a butterfly toggle anchor, which opens behind the board, holds far better. Before buying a large mirror or framed piece, ask what it weighs and look at the back: two D-rings or a solid batten let it hang flat on two fixings, while a single wire or a sawtooth hook suits light prints only.
Spotted mirrors, sun-rotted curtains and moth-eaten rugs:
used décor ages in predictable places. On a mirror, check the edges and corners for black spots or a creeping grey shadow: the silver backing is failing, and it spreads rather than stops. Curtains that hung against a sunny window go brittle along the folds that faced the glass, so tug gently at the lining before you pay. Moths leave bare tracks and loose tufts in a wool rug, worst under furniture where nobody vacuumed, so ask to see the underside. Plug in any lamp, switch it on and off a few times and flex the cord near the base, where the wire breaks first. Candles and fragrance oils are worth buying sealed; an opened bottle has already lost part of its value.
Before a buyer drives over for your mirror or rug:
put the size and the weight in the first line, and photograph the piece and its back in daylight, which shows the colours as they are. For a rug, say whether it is handwoven and where, and turn a corner over so the underside shows. For a mirror or framed piece, show the hanging hardware and any spots at the edges. Curtains should come with the window width they were made for and whether the rail or rod is included, and a lamp with the bulb it takes. When you leave a furnished house, selling the rug, the mirror and the lamps as one lot saves several visits. Someone coming from Amatitlán will ask whether the big mirror fits flat in a car, so measure it with the frame.